Advances in the three-dimensional hydroelasticity of ships

Abstract

The study of hydroelasticity of ships first gained momentum in the late 1970s with the work of Bishop and Price, who established the two-dimensional (2D) hydroelasticity theory of ships. The concept and basic principle presented in their work to embody the structure and the surrounding fluid as a coupled entirety was further employed and extended in the creation of the general linear three-dimensional (3D) theory of hydroelasticity for an arbitrary shaped flexible marine structure travelling with a forward speed in a seaway in the middle of 1980s (Wu, 1984; Price and Wu, 1985a;Bishop et al., 1986). Since then, great progress has been achieved in the development and application of 3D hydroelasticity theories. These include the more rigorous methods of frequency-domain linear analysis accounting for the forward speed effect and the steady flow effect, the time-domain linear 3D theory, the non-linear 3D theory and the numerical methods for a floating structure travelling in rough seas with large motions, experimental techniques of 3D flexible ship models, the hydroelasticity-based design and safety assessment, etc. This paper presents an overview of these developments and achievements of linear and non-linear 3D hydroelasticity theories of ships, and the corresponding numerical and experimental techniques.

Application of CFD and FEA coupling to predict dynamic behaviour of a flexible barge in regular head waves

“…The ship structure is modelled using finite element methods and the fluid actions (radiation) are determined using a pulsating source Green's function. A great deal of progress has been achieved since in the development and application of 3-D hydroelasticity in frequency domain (Wu & Cui 2009).…”

Hydroelastic response of floating elastic discs to regular waves. Part 1. Wave basin experiments

“…Flexural motion becomes important in situations where the hydrodynamic loads impose significant strains on the structure, e.g. for sloshing impacts and vibrational properties of ships (Bishop & Price 1979;Faltinsen & Timokha 2009;Hirdaris & Temarel 2009;Wu & Cui 2009;Ten et al 2011), and for the fracture of sea-ice in the polar regions. A particular consequence of flexural motion is that waves may propagate through the hydroelastic system as oscillations in the fluid-structure interface.…”

Investigation on Ship Hydroelastic Vibrational Responses in Waves

“…The numerical and experimental results are systemically compared and analyzed, and the established hydroelastic analysis model turns out to be reliable and effective in the prediction of ship hydroelastic responses in waves.Early research efforts mainly focused on 2D theories in which 2D strip theories, linear or nonlinear, are adopted to analyze the hydrodynamics, while the elastic responses of the ship are represented by the modal superposition method [2][3][4]. With the advent and popularization of high-performance computers, 3D hydroelastic analysis gradually captured the attention of the marine community, especially for the cases where the assumptions of the strip method are not appropriately satisfied [5,6]. The fluid flow is modeled by the 3D potential flow theory, and the ship structure is considered using a 1D or 3D finite element (FE) model [7][8][9].…”