Numerical and experimental analysis of a moored pontoon under regular wave in water of finite depth

Abstract

The hydrodynamic analysis of pontoon-type floating structure interacting with waves is very important in offshore engineering. In this paper, both numerical and physical model tests have been carried out to investigate the hydrodynamic performances of a moored pontoon in finite depth water. The experiments were conducted with many cases with various wave periods under regular wave in a wave tank. Numerical simulations were carried out in the several conditions. The numerical results were compared with the consequences of the model tests. It is showed that the numerical results are in agreement with the model tests in majority cases, particularly, the change tendency of curves is essentially same in two ways. The motion responses of the floating pontoon, as well as the chain forces in different wave heights and wave angles were calculated with a wide range of wave periods by the numerical method to find out the influences of the wave parameters on the hydrodynamic properties of the moored barge. Based on the numerical and experimental results, some useful conclusions have been drawn in this paper.

Keywords:

• Offshore structure
• hydrodynamic analysis
• moored pontoon
• physical model tests
• finite water depth

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to recognize the usefulness of the reviewers’ comments and suggestions regarding this paper. The paper is part of a study financially supported by the High-Tech Ship Research Projects Sponsored by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Key Technology R&D Program (grant no. 2014BAB16B05) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant no. 51379213). The authors wish to thank Hongjie Ling and Prof. Zhidong Wang for their help with the test data processing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

High-Tech Ship Research Projects Sponsored by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology; National Key Technology R&D Program [grant number 2014BAB16B05]; National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 51379213].