21ST INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON OFFSHORE MECHANICS AND ARCTIC ENGINEERING (OMAE'02) OMAE2002-28548 COUPLED NONLINEAR MOTION OF FLOATING STRUCTURES WITH WATER COLUMNS IN OPEN-BOTTOM TANKS

• Main Authors: Q W Ma, M H Patel
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1046.2811; http://proceedings.asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/data/conferences/omae2002/69666/783_1.pdf

ABSTRACT This paper examines the behaviour in ocean waves of floating structures that incorporate open-bottom tanks on their submerged hull geometry. These tanks contain water columns that can flow in or out through their open bottoms, and may also include a volume of trapped air on the top of such water columns. The trapped air acts as a spring with the motion of the floating structures in ocean waves being influenced by interactions between the vessel, the air springs and the water columns underneath them. During operations, the volume of air above the water columns can be trapped or allowed to flow freely to and from the atmosphere. The nonlinear equations of motion for the whole system are derived. These equations include nonlinearities not only due to the products of the motions of the floating structure and water columns but also due to coupled products of the motions of the rigid body and the water columns. Numerical results show that the effects of such nonlinearities may be important for some cases.