Experimental investigation of nonlinearities of ship responses in head waves

The present study focuses on building a systematic approach to identify, from experimental results, the nonlinearity in the dynamic system of a high-speed ship. The experimental program consists of tests in both regular and irregular head waves, and the measured quantities included wave elevation, vertical motions, and hull pressures. By contrasting these results to the quasi-linear behaviors of heave motion, the nonlinear behaviors of pressure are highlighted and presented. Three nonlinear assessments, the probability density function, and the variance spectra are provided. Based on these investigations, we conclude that the pressures, particularly, at the ship’s bow contain more nonlinearities than just the heave motion. They are identified mainly by the large amplitude of the higher harmonics and also by the large asymmetry in the measured signals. Furthermore, the coherence spectrum obtained from the third-order orthogonal frequency-domain Volterra model provides information regarding the magnitude of each order at the corresponding frequency, which serves as a strategy to simplify a complex problem or to achieve a balance between regular and irregular waves. The overall results show that the higher-order components are significant for the pressure system and the outcome of the proposed model can offer constructive feedback, which can lead to more practical applications.