Time domain simulation of side-by-side floating bodies using a 3D numerical wave tank approach

The coupled system of two side-by-side fixed and/or floating bodies interacting with a large amplitude nonlinear wave is studied using a direct time domain solution method. The numerical model is based on a three-dimensional mixed Eulerian–Lagrangian (MEL) method under certain simplifying approximations permitting Rankine panel scheme to be implemented over a time-invariant boundary surface to solve the boundary value problem for the unknown velocity potentials. A 4th order Adams–Bashforth–Moulton scheme is used for time marching of rigid-body motion histories of the individual bodies and evolution of the free-surface including the gap region in which large resonant fluid motions occur. A systematic study has been carried out to evaluate the performance of the developed time domain method in simulating the forces and motions as well as the fluid motion in the gap region for the two body system under various arrangements and in different wave-headings. At first, the computed numerical results have been validated and verified with computational and experimental results available in literature for standard geometries such as vertical truncated cylinders and rectangular boxes. Secondly, effectiveness of the damping lid model which is introduced to suppress wave resonance in the gap region is investigated including its influence on maximum sway forces on fixed and floating rectangular barges in side-by-side configurations. Thirdly, comparative studies on absolute and relative motion response for two cases (two rectangular barges, and a FLNG-FPSO + shuttle tanker) in side-by-side arrangement are detailed to bring out the importance of nonlinearities arising due to steep nonlinear incident waves. Finally, coupled motions of the two-body system of an FPSO and a shuttle tanker floating in side-by-side configuration in a steep nonlinear wave field are studied in which the two bodies are connected through hawsers, and also the FPSO is moored to the ground. Additionally there is a fender between the two bodies.     

A Unified Computational Method for Simulating Dynamic Behavior of Planing Vessels

High speed planing hulls have complex hydrodynamic behaviors. The trim angle and drafts are very sensitive to speed and location of the center of gravity. Therefore, motion simulation for such vessels needs a strong coupling between rigid body motions and hydrodynamic analysis. In addition, free surface should be predicted with good accuracy for each time step. In this paper, velocity and pressure fields are coupled by use of the fractional step method. On the basis of integration of the two-phase viscous flow induced stresses over the hull, acting loads (forces and moments) are calculated. With the strategy of boundary-fitted body-attached mesh and calculation of 6-DoF motions in each time step, time history of ship motions including displacements, speeds and accelerations are evaluated. For the demonstration of the software capabilities, circular cylinder slamming is simulated as a simple type of water slamming. Then, a high-speed planing catamaran is investigated in the case of steady forward motion. All of the results are in good concordance with experimental data. The present method can be widely implemented in design as well as in performance prediction of high-speed vessels.     

Seakeeping performance of fishing vessels in irregular waves

A study of the seakeeping performance of a set of fishing vessels is carried out aiming to identify the seakeeping criteria, and vessel conditions that limit the operability of the fishing vessels in certain sea states. Ship motions and derived responses are obtained in fully developed sea states using the transfer functions of the hull forms. Those responses are assessed against the prescribed values, for the chosen criteria, to determine the vessels operational conditions that might result in hazards or seasickness. For the purpose of this study, each fishing vessel is considered operating in sea states 5 and 6, with different Froude numbers and heading angles, and their short term responses are assessed against the most relevant criteria related with the absolute and relative motions, accelerations, slamming and green water on deck. The results obtained show that roll and pitch criteria are most critical for seakeeping performance, and there is a significant influence of the transverse metacentric height, GMt, and the location of the reference checking points in the seakeeping performance of these fishing vessels.     

Study of the motions of fishing vessels by a time domain panel method

In this paper, a wide variety of computed motion results is presented for three existing fishing vessels. In order to do that, time domain computations of 3D ship motions are performed with a time domain Green's function. The computational method adopted is based on a previously developed one, whose numerical scheme here is subjected to modifications that increase its robustness and overall efficiency, so that it can be applied to calculate the motions of fishing vessels. The results are then compared with simulations using WAMIT for the zero speed case, and a strip theory method is used to determine the effect of forward speed. Results are presented for head seas, quartering head waves and following waves with three distinct Froude numbers.     

Effect of criteria on seakeeping performance assessment

The overall performance of ships depends on the seakeeping performance in specified sea areas where the vessel is designed to operate. The seakeeping performance procedure is based upon the probability of exceeding specified ship motions in a sea environment particular to the vessel's mission. Given the operational area of the vessel, the percentage of time the vessel operates in a particular sea state can be determined from an oceanographic database through application of the response amplitude operators. The predicted motions are compared to the motion limiting criteria to obtain the operability indices. However, the operability indices are strongly affected by the chosen limiting criteria. This is particularly the case for passenger vessels where many conflicting criteria are used to assess the effect of motions and accelerations on comfort and well-being of passengers. This paper investigates the effect of seakeeping criteria on seakeeping performance assessment for passenger vessels. Conventional seakeeping performance measures are evaluated for various levels of vertical accelerations defined by the ISO 2631 standard. It is shown that the estimated seakeeping performance of a passenger vessel greatly depends on the level of limiting value selected as the seakeeping criteria.     

A Unified Computational Method for Simulating Dynamic Behavior of Planing Vessels

High speed planing hulls have complex hydrodynamic behaviors. The trim angle and drafts are very sensitive to speed and location of the center of gravity. Therefore, motion simulation for such vessels needs a strong coupling between rigid body motions and hydrodynamic analysis. In addition, free surface should be predicted with good accuracy for each time step. In this paper, velocity and pressure fields are coupled by use of the fractional step method. On the basis of integration of the two-phase viscous f...     

Hydrodynamic interactions and relative motions of two floating platforms with mooring lines in side-by-side offloading operation

The hydrodynamic interaction and mechanical coupling effects of two floating platforms connected by elastic lines are investigated by using a time-domain multi-hull/mooring/riser coupled dynamics analysis program. Particular attention is paid to the contribution of off-diagonal hydrodynamic interaction terms on the relative motions during side-by-side offloading operation. In this regard, the exact method (CMM: combined matrix method) including all the vessel and line dynamics, and the 12×12 hydrodynamic coefficients in a combined matrix is developed. The performance of two typical approximation methods (NHI/No Hydrodynamic Interaction: iteration method between two vessels without considering hydrodynamic interaction effects; SMM/Separated Matrix Method: iteration method between two vessels with partially considering hydrodynamic interaction effects, i.e. ignoring off-diagonal cross-coupling terms in the 12×12 hydrodynamic coefficient matrix) is also tested for the same side-by-side offloading operation in two different environmental conditions. The numerical examples show that there exists significant discrepancy at sway and roll modes between the exact and the approximation methods, which means that the cross-coupling (off-diagonal block) terms of the full hydrodynamic coefficient matrix play an important role in the case of side-by-side offloading operation. Therefore, such approximation methods should be used with care. The fender reaction forces, which exhibit large force with contact but no force without contact, are also numerically modeled in the present time-domain simulation study.     

Study of non-linear wave motions and wave forces on ship sections against vertical quay in a harbor

The resonance phenomenon of fluid motions in the gap between ship section, seabed and vertical quay wall is studied numerically and experimentally. The natural frequency of the fluid motions in the gap is derived. A two-dimensional time-domain coupled numerical model is developed to calculate the non-linear wave forces acting on a ship section against vertical quay in a harbor. The fluid domain is divided into an inner domain and an outer domain. The outer domain is the area between the left side of ship section and the incident boundary, where flow is expressed by Boussinesq equations. The rest area is the inner domain, which is the domain beneath the ship section plus the domain between the right side of ship section and vertical quay wall. The flow in the inner domain is expressed by Newton's Second Law. Matching conditions on the interface between the inner domain and the outer domain are the continuation of volume flux and the equality of pressures. The numerical results are validated by experimental data.     

Coupling Effect of Riser on Integrated FPS in Deepwater Area

The main challenge in predicting global responses of floating vessels in deepwater and ultra-deepwater areas comes from the system's coupled effect.In this paper,the coupled approach is used to analyze effects of riser on floating system in deepwater.The analysis results show that the coupling effects of risers will mainly affect the low frequency (LF) motions of the system.That is because risers will provide the system with a significant low frequency (LF) damping which will vary with the sea states.Under ...     

A Comparative Study Between Least Square and Total Least Square Methods for Time–Series Analysis and Quality Control of Sea Level Observations

In this study, the quality control of tide gauge observations is investigated by two methods of least square (LS-HE) and total least square harmonic estimation (TLS-HE). Particularly, it is shown how to deal with unexpected anomalies, including outliers, offset and gap in the time series of sea level height. To do so, at first the time series is constructed and then a method based on variance threshold is used to eliminate the possible outliers in the observations. Subsequently, a noise assessment algorithm is implemented and the signal is processed to find the possible times of offsets and to eliminate their corresponding observations from the time series. Finally, the signal is checked to find the periods of gap within the time series and then the gap area is predicted with correct observations. Gap filling analysis is performed in two contexts. In the first, only the significant frequencies of tide are considered in the modelling procedure, while in the second, all possible frequencies according to the period of observations are included. Our results show that for modelling and gap filling, the TLS-HE method has a better performance in a comparison with LS-HE method. Although, for offset and outlier detections, the LS-HE is recommended. It also indicates that the TLS-HE method provides a regular solution for gap filling analysis while LS-HE method needs a regularization scheme for which LSQR regularization is used.     

Towards simulation of 3D nonlinear high-speed vessels motion

A numerical simulation algorithm based on the finite volume discretisation is presented for analyzing ship motions. The algorithm employs a fractional step method to deal with the coupling between the pressure and velocity fields. The free surface capturing is fulfilled by using a volume of fluid method in which the interface between the liquid (water) and gas (air) phases are computed by solving a scalar transport equation for the volume fraction of the liquid phase. The computed velocity field is employed to evaluate the acting forces and moments on the vessel. Using the strategy of boundary-fitted body-attached mesh and calculating all six degrees-of-freedom of motion in each time step, time history of ship motions including displacements, velocities and accelerations are evaluated.To verify the proposed algorithm, a series of verification tests are conducted. First, a two-dimensional asymmetrical wedge slamming is simulated as a simple type of a common case for high-speed vessels. Then, the steady-state forward motion of a high-speed planing catamaran is investigated. Results of both test cases show good agreement with experimental data. It is concluded that the proposed algorithm can be a promising strategy for both performance prediction and design of high-speed vessels.     

Design of mooring system of vessels inside breakwater

A method of simulation calculation for a mooring system of vessels inside a breakwater is illustrated. Using a simulation program based on the above method, a test design for a mooring system for oil-storage vessels of total 5.6 million kiloliters was conducted.In order to obtain data for the simulation program, various experiments, such as wind tunnel tests to test wind resistance, and wave tank tests to test the waves transmitted through or over the breakwater, and the motions of vessels inside the breakwater due to waves, were conducted.Some proposals concerning design criteria and safety factors are presented.Finally, the results of the test design under estimated sea and weather conditions are shown, and the design is concluded to be both technically and economically feasible.     

Propagation of semi-diurnal internal tides observed off fukushima,along the east coast of Japan

Analysis of current velocity and temperature records obtained from moored buoy systems deployed off the east coast of Japan reveals the intermittent occurrence of semi-diurnal internal tides and their manner of propagation. The internal tidal waves clearly propagate toward the shore, which is confirmed by cross-correlation of the onshore current velocity and temperature between neighboring stations. The propagation speed of the internal tide increases with water depth except in the area furthest offshore. In this area, motions near the second mode seem to occur occasionally, while in the nearshore area the motions for the most part consist of the first mode. Through harmonic analysis, it is shown that theM ₁ internal motions were not vertically homogeneous. That is, the internal motions are greater at the lower level in the nearshore area while they are greater at the upper level in the offshore area. Pathways along which the energy of the internal tide should propagate are estimated in such a way that the characteristic curves pass through the area over which relatively large onshore/offshoreM ₂ velocity is distributed. The movement of the characteristic ray of a certain phase explains the observed phase velocity estimated from the cross-correlation diagrams. Internal motions around the characteristic ray were pronounced in a rather wide area. Thus, it is suggested that the generation region of the internal tide in the present study area might be relatively wide.     

Time-domain simulation of large-amplitude response of floating platforms

Two numerical simulation models to predict large-amplitude motions of floating platforms are presented. The first method is based on the application of the relative-velocity formulation of Morison's equation for force calculations. The second method developed in this work uses the three-dimensional potential theory in time domain. In this method, both the Froude-Krylov and scattering forces are calculated by considering finite wave amplitude effects in random waves. The effect of various nonlinearities on the low-frequency motions and high-frequency tether-tension response of a tension leg platform are studied using these simulation models in conjunction with power spectral methods. The presence of current and the nonlinear drag force are observed to have a significant effect on the low-frequency motions and tether tensions.     

Stability of small fishing vessels in longitudinal waves

The dynamic stability of fishing vessels in longitudinal regular waves is investigated, both analytically and experimentally. In particular, the influence of stern shape on the parametric stability of fishing vessels is studied. Vessels TS and RS have very similar main characteristics, but their sterns are different. Although their linear responses are comparable, both analytical and experimental investigations indicate substantial differences in their dynamic stability in longitudinal regular waves. Strong resonances are found for the vessel with the deep transom. The analytical method takes into consideration the effects of the heave and pitch motions and wave passage and shows good agreement with experimental results. Stability limits are obtained for different conditions and are used as an aid in the discussion of the results obtained in the tests when relevant parameters are changed, such as wave amplitude and frequency, metacentric height and roll damping moment.     

Hydrodynamic coefficients of a floating,truncated vertical cylinder in shallow water

The paper seeks to apply the methodology of matched asymptotic expansions to obtain analytical solutions for hydrodynamic properties of a circular cylindrical platform (truncated circular cylinder) in extremely shallow water. By matching potentials of the fluid flows outside and under the cylinder bottom with the inner flow near its edge the radiation problems are solved for heave, surge and pitch motions. Closed asymptotic formulae are derived for all hydrodynamic coefficients of the floating cylinder, which include the first-order terms in the gap height. The formulae are discussed and shown to compare well with numerical results published in literature.     

Seasonal variations of the upper ocean in the western north pacific observed by an argo float

A seasonal evolution of surface mixed layer in the western North Pacific around 24°N between 143°E and 150°E was observed by using an Argo float for more than 9 months, from December 2001 through August 2002. The result showed that the mixed layer deepened gradually in the first two months. It reached its maximum depth of about 130 m at the end of January, after which the mixed layer varied largely and sometimes the pycnocline below the mixed layer was much weakened until the summer mixed layer formed in late April. The thin surface mixed layer was maintained during the rest of the observation period. Heat budget analysis suggests that the vertical and horizontal temperature advections are the two most dominant terms in the heat balance in the upper layer on time scales from a few days to a month. The vertical motions that are possibly responsible for the vertical temperature advection are discussed.     

Spar平台与刚性立管及浮力罐耦合动力研究综述

Spar平台是深水和超深水海域中极具竞争力的平台类型。Spar平台中刚性立管顶端所需的张力由月池内部的浮力罐提供,浮力罐在水平方向由导向架支撑。平台运动过程中,浮力罐及立管与平台主体发生相对运动和相互动力作用,在水平方向上发生带有空隙效应的碰撞现象,在垂向产生库仑摩擦效应。这是一种复杂的非线性多点接触耦合动力现象,对平台主体和浮力罐的运动及性能都有着重要影响。因此,无论从平台主体设计及水动力性能方面,还是从浮力罐疲劳分析及安全性方面考虑,都有必要对Spar平台与浮力罐之间的耦合动力作用进行深入的研究。在介绍目前国际上Spar平台与浮力罐相关研究情况及进展的基础上,提出了今后研究的有关建议。     

The analysis of tandem hull vessel motion in waves

This paper attempts to provide a better understanding of the hydrodynamic behavior of a tandem hull form in a floating production platform application where high deck payload capacity and low wave induced motions of this vessel are primary design goals. A simplified hydrodynamic analysis and a more representative radiation and diffraction theory based hydrodynamic analysis are used for wave induced forces and motions. The analysis results are compared with model test results to deduce principal features of these special purpose hull configurations. The motion responses in different wave headings evaluated from the complicated diffraction analysis are compared and discussed in some detail.     

Nonlinear meta-models for conceptual seakeeping design of fishing vessels

The scope of this paper is to develop the nonlinear meta-models for seakeeping behaviour, considering the fishing vessels. These models are intended to be inserted either in a multiattribute design selection process or in a comprehensive multiobjective optimization procedure. For this purpose, seakeeping data of fishing vessels in regular head waves are used to develop meta-models of transfer functions of heave, pitch and vertical acceleration by nonlinear analysis. A home-made software considers two databases; the first is composed by the ship dimensions and coefficients of fishing vessels, and the second is their ship motion data obtained by employing a strip-theory calculation. The meta-models are proposed to predict the vertical motion characteristics for given ranges of speed and wave length during the concept design stage. The independent variables are hull size (Δ), main dimensions (L, B, T), and some hydrostatic parameters (C_WP, C_VP, LCB, LCF, etc.). The results estimated by the software show good correspondences with the ones achieved by direct computations. The study provides additional insight on the influence of hull form parameters on seakeeping performance of small vessels having form properties and parametric range corresponding to the investigated vessels.