Fluid-induced inertia and damping in vibrating offshore structures

The problem addressed in this paper is that of the fluid-structure interaction in offshore structures for which effects due to fluid viscosity are negligible. A method for evaluating the dynamic response of structures is described in which the generalized coordinates for the analysis are associated with the ‘dry’ modes of the structure. All hydrodynamic actions, including those induced by motions of the structure, are retained on the right-hand side of the equations of motion. This formulation requires the determination of generalized added mass and damping matrices associated with motions of the structure in its first few ‘dry’ modes. By these means, free surface and three dimensional fluid flow effects are retained in the analysis. Examples of the resulting frequency dependent matrices, computed using the boundary integral method, are presented for some common structural forms, and the validity of this approach is demonstrated through some experiments on a deforming column structure. Finally, results for the wave-excited dynamic response of a typical offshore structure obtained using (i) conventional strip theory ‘wet’ modes, and (ii) ‘dry’ modes, are compared.