CFD approach to roll damping of ship with bilge keel with experimental validation

The most common method of reducing roll motion of ship-shaped floating systems is the use of bilge keel which act as damping elements. The estimation of the damping introduced by bilge keel is still largely based on empirical methods. The present work adopts the CFD approach to the estimation of roll damping, both without and with bilge keel and validates the results with experiments conducted in a wave flume. Specifically, free oscillation tests are conducted at model scale to obtain roll damping, both by experiments and CFD simulation and reasonably good comparisons are obtained. The experiments also include PIV study of the flow field and attempt has been made to correlate the measured flow field with that obtained by CFD. The CFD methodology has the potential to determine rationally the size and orientation of bilge keels in design with reasonably accurate estimate of the additional roll damping that it provides to ship's roll motion.     

Application of the extended Melnikov's method for single-degree-of-freedom vessel roll motion

Traditionally, when using Melnikov's method to analyze ship motions, the damping terms are treated as small. This is typically true for roll motion but not always true for other and/or multiple degrees of freedom. In order to apply Melnikov's method to other and/or multiple-degree-of-freedom motions, the small damping assumption must be addressed. In this paper, the extended Melnikov method is used to analyze ship motion without the constraint of small linear damping. Two roll motion models are analyzed here. One is a simple roll model with nonlinear damping and cubic restoring moment. The other is the model with biased restoring moment. Numerical simulations are investigated for both models. The effectiveness and accuracy of this method is demonstrated.     

Empirical calculation of roll damping for ships and barges

For a large floating structure in waves, the damping is computed by the linear diffraction/radiation theory. For most degrees of freedom, this radiation damping is adequate for an accurate prediction of the rigid body motions of the structure at the wave frequencies. This is not particularly true for the roll motion of a long floating structure. For ships, barges and similar long offshore structures, the roll damping is highly nonlinear. In these cases the radiation damping is generally quite small compared to the total damping in the system. Moreover, the dynamic amplification in roll may be large for such structures since the roll natural period generally falls within the frequency range of a typical wave energy spectrum experienced by them. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that a good estimate of the roll damping is made for such structures. The actual prediction of roll damping is a difficult analytical task. The nonlinear components of roll damping are determined from model and full scale experiments. This paper examines the roll damping components and their empirical contributions. These empirical expressions should help the designer of such floating structures. The numerical values of roll damping components of typical ships and barges in waves and current (or forward speed) are presented.     

Design of passive anti-roll tanks for roll stabilization in the nonlinear range

The best way of reducing roll motion is by increasing roll damping. Bilge keels are the most common devices for increasing roll damping. If more control is required, anti-roll tanks and fins are used. Tanks have the advantage of being able to function when the ship is not underway. Our objective is to develop design procedures for passive tanks for roll reduction in rough seas. This paper focuses on the design of passive U-tube tanks. The tank-liquid equation of motion is integrated simultaneously with the six-degree-of-freedom (6DOF) equations of the ship motion. The coupled set of equations is solved by using the Large Amplitude Motion Program ‘LAMP’, which is a three-dimensional time-domain simulation of the motion of ships in waves. The unstabilized and stabilized roll motions of a S60-70 ship with forward speed and beam waves have been analyzed. For high-amplitude waves, the unstabilized roll angle exhibits typical nonlinear phenomena: a shift in the resonance frequency, multi-valued responses, and jumps. The performance of a S60-70 ship with a passive tank is investigated in various sea states with different encounter wave directions. It is found that passive anti-roll tanks tuned in the linear or nonlinear ranges are very effective in reducing the roll motion in the nonlinear range. The effect of the tank damping, frequency, and mass on the tank performance is studied. Also, it is found that passive anti-roll tanks are very effective in reducing the roll motion for ships having a pitch frequency that is nearly twice the roll frequency in sea states 5 and 6.     

Solution of the nonlinear roll model by a generalized asymptotic method

Mathematical modeling of the nonlinear roll motion of ships is one subject widely dealt with in nonlinear ship dynamics. This paper investigates setting up a form of nonlinear roll motion model and developing its periodic solution by the generalized Krylov–Bogoliubov asymptotic method in the time domain. In this model, nonlinearities are introduced through damping and restoring terms. The restoring term is approximated as a third-order odd polynomial whereas the quadratic term is favored to represent the nonlinear damping. The ship is assumed to be under the influence of a sinusoidal exciting force. Although the method is expressible to contain any order of the perturbing term, a single degree is chosen to avoid cumbersome mathematical complexity. In order to improve the solution a first-order correction term is also included. Moreover, a numerical example is carried out for a small vessel in order to validate the solution scheme.     

Parametric roll due to hull instantaneous volumetric changes and speed variations

Parametric roll of a containership in head sea condition has been studied in the paper. A time domain routine for GZ righting arm calculation based on exact underwater hull geometry has been implemented into a two-degree-of-freedom procedure for roll response calculation. The speed variation due to e.g. added resistance has been accounted for in the model by the surge velocity. The ship roll motion due to a regular wave critical for parametric roll occurrence has been simulated, as well as the ship roll response in a severe stochastic sea. The present method has been compared with other existing methods for parametric roll prediction.     

Study on coupling effects of ship motion and sloshing

This study considers the coupling effects of ship motion and sloshing. The linear ship motion is solved using an impulse-response-function (IRF) method, while the nonlinear sloshing flow is simulated using a finite-difference method. The IRF method requires the frequency-domain solution prior to conversion to time domain, but the computational effort is much less than that of direct time-domain approaches. The developed scheme is verified by comparing the motion RAOs between the frequency-domain solution and the solution obtained by the IRF method. Furthermore, a soft-spring concept and linear roll damping are implemented to predict more realistic motions of surge, sway, yaw, and roll. For the simulation of sloshing flow in liquid tanks, a physics-based numerical approach adopted by Kim [2001. Numerical simulation of sloshing flows with impact load. Applied Ocean Research 23, 53–62] and Kim et al. [2004. Numerical study on slosh-induced impact pressures on three-dimensional prismatic tanks. Applied Ocean Research 26, 213–226] is applied. In particular, the present method focuses on the simulation of the global motion of sloshing flow, ignoring some local phenomena. The sloshing-induced forces and moments are added to wave-excitation forces and moments, and then the corresponding body motion is obtained. The developed schemes are applied for two problems: the sway motion of a box-type barge with rectangular tanks and the roll motion of a modified S175 hull with rectangular anti-rolling tank. Motion RAOs are compared with existing results, showing fair agreement. It is found that the nonlinearity of sloshing flow is very important in coupling analysis. Due to the nonlinearity of sloshing flow, ship motion shows a strong sensitivity to wave slope.     

Experimental investigation of the lift component of roll damping

The lift force and turning moment acting on a model towed obliquely to the direction of motion have been measured. Two models were used; one of them was tested fitted with and without a rudder. These measurements were used to determine the magnitude of the lift coefficient and the point of application of the transverse force acting on the model. The data were then used to determine the lift component of the roll damping moment. It has been found that the equivalent linear damping coefficient due to lift is a nonlinear function of the forward speed of the ship.     

Control of ship roll using passive and active anti-roll tanks

We numerically studied the full (six degrees of freedom) motion of a cargo ship without roll stabilizers in rough (sea state 5) conditions for multiple heading angles ranging from 0° (follower seas) to 180° (head seas). We found that the ship exhibits excessive roll motion in quartering (45° off the stern), beam, and head seas. Therefore, roll damping is critical in these conditions. We then investigated the performance of passive and active anti-roll tank (ART) systems and compared their performance in each of the three sea conditions. Each ART consists of three identical tanks, distributed along the centerline of the ship, each of which consists of two vertical ducts connected at the bottom with a horizontal duct. A pump is located at the middle of the horizontal duct of each tank. The pumps are switched on for active ARTs but switched off for passive ones. The loads (forces and moments) exerted on the ship by the ARTs are added to the hydrodynamic loads (e.g., due to pressure and viscous effects) and the thrust in the governing equations of motion of the ship. Whereas both passive and active ARTs are able to reduce the excessive roll motion, active ARTs outperform the passive ones from three perspectives. First, they are more effective in reducing the roll motion. Second, they require much less working liquid. Third, their performance is insensitive to their natural frequencies and, hence, to their geometric design. In addition, we found that head seas are most responsive to ARTs, which suggests that they are effective in mitigating parametric roll.     

Unscented Kalman Filter trained neural networks based rudder roll stabilization system for ship in waves

The large roll motion of ships sailing in the seaway is undesirable because it may lead to the seasickness of crew and unsafety of vessels and cargoes, thus it needs to be reduced. The aim of this study is to design a rudder roll stabilization system based on Radial Basis Function Neural Network (RBFNN) control algorithm for ship advancing in the seaway only through rudder actions. In the proposed stabilization system, the course keeping controller and the roll damping controller were accomplished by utilizing modified Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) training algorithm, and implemented in parallel to maintain the orientation and reduce roll motion simultaneously. The nonlinear mathematical model, which includes manoeuvring characteristics and wave disturbances, was adopted to analyse ship’s responses. Various sailing states and the external wave disturbances were considered to validate the performance and robustness of the proposed roll stabilizer. The results indicate that the designed control system performs better than the Back Propagation (BP) neural networks based control system and conventional Proportional-Derivative (PD) based control system in terms of reducing roll motion for ship in waves.     

A study of the angle dependence of roll damping moment

The angle dependence of the roll damping moment is investigated by analysing experimentally obtained free roll decay records. Two ship models were used with and without bilge keels, also results with forward speed were obtained. The analysis indicate strong angle dependence and explains why the quadratic and cubic velocity dependent damping moments are successful in many cases.     

Recovering the functional form of the nonlinear roll damping of ships from a free-roll decay experiment: An inverse formulism

The purpose of this paper is to identify the functional form of the nonlinear roll damping for a particular ship based on an experiment. The problem of damping identification is formulated as an integral equation of the first kind. However, the solution of the problem lacks stability properties, due to the ill-posedness of the first-kind integral equation. To resolve this problem, a stabilization technique (known as a regularization method) is applied to the present problem of the identification of nonlinear damping. The identified results for nonlinear roll dampings are compared with those from a conventional roll identification method. The findings of the present study are validated by the direct comparison of experimental data on free-roll decay motion with the numerically simulated results.     

Roll stabilization by anti-roll passive tanks

Since the most severe roll motion occurs at resonance (known as synchronous rolling), the best way of reducing it is to increase the damping. The most common means of doing so is by the installation of bilge keels. If more control is required, both anti-roll tanks and fins are used. Tanks have the advantage of being able to function when the ship is not underway. The use of tanks with liquid free surfaces for reducing roll motion of ships is an old idea. Many researchers have studied the design of anti-roll tanks. However, most of the past effort has concentrated on studying the performance of anti-roll tanks in damping the roll motion of the ship. Little attention has been paid to the fluid motion inside the tank itself. Another important issue is the tank tuning. Proper tuning of the anti-roll tank, to match the ship's natural frequency, is very important in reducing the roll motion. This paper concentrates on the most familiar type, which is the U-tube passive tank as a mechanical absorber of roll motion. A detailed study, covering tank damping, mass, location relative to the ship CG, and tuning, is presented. New suggestions and observations are stated concerning tank damping and tuning.     

An investigation into parametric roll resonance in regular waves using a partly non-linear numerical model

A partly non-linear time-domain numerical model is used for the prediction of parametric roll resonance in regular waves. The ship is assumed to be a system with four degrees of freedom, namely, sway, heave, roll and pitch. The non-linear incident wave and hydrostatic restoring forces/moments are evaluated considering the instantaneous wetted surface whereas the hydrodynamic forces and moments, including diffraction, are expressed in terms of convolution integrals based on the mean wetted surface. The model also accounts for non-potential roll damping expressed in an equivalent linearised form. Finally, the coupled equations of motion are solved in the time-domain referenced to a body fixed axis system.This method is applied to a range of hull forms, a post-Panamax C11 class containership, a transom stern Trawler and the ITTC-A1 containership, all travelling in regular waves. Obtained results are validated by comparison with numerical/experimental data available in the literature. A thorough investigation into the influence of the inclusion of sway motion is conducted. In addition, for the ITTC-A1 containership, an investigation is carried out into the influence of tuning the numerical model by modifying the numerical roll added inertia to match that obtained from roll decay curves.     

Stochastic inverse modeling of nonlinear roll damping moment of a ship

This work presents an application of stochastic inverse method for the determination of nonlinear roll damping moment of a ship at zero forward speed. Nonlinear roll damping moment was estimated from the measured dynamic responses through stochastic inverse model. It is shown that this method enables nonlinear characteristic of the roll damping to be estimated without any assumption on its form of nonlinearity, including its confidence intervals given noisy data. The accuracy and practicability were assessed with laboratory tests related to both free-decay and forced rolling motions. The estimation results of the nonlinear damping moment show good agreement in all cases.     

Numerical simulation of ship stability for dynamic environment

The prediction of ship stability during the early stages of design is very important from the point of vessel’s safety. Out of the six motions of a ship, the critical motion leading to capsize of a vessel is the rolling motion. In the present study, particular attention is paid to the performance of a ship in beam sea. The linear ship response in waves is evaluated using strip theory. Critical condition in the rolling motion of a ship is when it is subjected to synchronous beam waves. In this paper, a nonlinear approach has been tried to predict the roll response of a vessel. Various representations of damping and restoring terms found in the literature are investigated. A parametric investigation is undertaken to identify the effect of a number of key parameters like wave amplitude, wave frequency, metacentric height, etc.     

Adaptive ship roll mitigation by using a U-tube tank

Active control of ship roll motion with proportional and derivative controller, linear quadratic regulator, generalized predictive control (GPC), and deadbeat predictive control, is studied by using a U-tube water tank. For the predictive control, system identification is applied to update the parameters of linear ship roll model with U-tube tank when the ship dynamics changes. Numerical simulations show that GPC has the best performance and the U-tube tank is effective in ship roll mitigation.     

Parameter identification of nonlinear roll motion equation for floating structures in irregular waves

In order to predict the roll motion of a floating structure in irregular waves accurately, it is crucial to estimate the unknown damping coefficients and restoring moment coefficients in the nonlinear roll motion equation. In this paper, a parameter identification method based on a combination of random decrement technique and support vector regression (SVR) is proposed to identify the coefficients in the roll motion equation of a floating structure by using the measured roll response in irregular waves. Case studies based on the simulation data and model test data respectively are designed to validate the applicability and validity of the identification method. Firstly, the roll motion of a vessel is simulated by using the known coefficients from literature, and the simulated data are used to identify the coefficients in the roll motion equation. The identified coefficients are compared with the known values to validate the applicability of the identification method. Then the roll motion is predicted by using the identified coefficients. The prediction results are compared with the simulated data, and good agreement is achieved. Secondly, the model test data of a FPSO are used to identify the coefficients in the roll motion equation. Then the random decrement signature of the roll motion is predicted by using the identified coefficients and compared with that obtained from the model test data, and satisfactory agreement is achieved. From this study, it is shown that the identification method can be effectively applied to identify the coefficients in the nonlinear roll motion equation in irregular waves.