Vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) of two elastically mounted circular cylinders with different diameters in tandem arrangement are investigated in a two-dimensional (2D) numerical simulation. The fluid domain is simulated by solving 2D Reynold-Averaged Navier-Stokes equations. Meanwhile, the VIV response of the structures is obtained by solving the motion equation using the 4th Runge-Kutta method. The parameters of the cylinders are designed according to an experimental study of flexible risers. Simulation of an elastically mounted single cylinder is firstly carried out and compared with published experimental results to verify the method utilized in the paper. The results of single cylinder show the response frequencies of the bluff cylinders and the flexible cylinder are comparable. In the simulation of the tandem cylinders, a “frequency capture” phenomenon that the oscillation frequencies of downstream cylinder are locked on to that of the up-stream one although they are with different diameters is observed. It also occurs in the experimental study of flexible cylinders. The mechanism behind is analyzed in the paper.

This paper was removed from publication at the author’s request. January 15, 2021. Copyright © 2021 by ASME

This paper was removed from publication at the author’s request. January 15, 2021. Copyright © 2021 by ASME

The Flow-Induced Motions (FIM) is an essential topic on multi-column platforms due to the effect on the mooring line fatigue life. Vortex-Induced Motions (VIM) or galloping behavior can be observed for an array of four columns with square sections. The presence of pontoons showed to be important for changing the flow around the array and promoting different amplitude behaviors of the motions in the transverse direction mainly. This article aims to understand the effect of the presence of four pontoons on the FIM of a semi-submersible platform (SS) with four square section columns. Model tests of a floating system supported elastically utilizing four springs were performed in a towing tank. Five different pontoon ratios were tested, namely P/L = 0, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, and 1.00; where P is the pontoon height (the dimension in the vertical direction), and L is the length of the square column face. The draft condition was kept constant as H/L = 1.5; where H is the draft of the platform. The spacing ratio of the columns was S/L = 4; where S is the distance between column centers. Two incidence angles of the current were carried out, namely 0 and 45 degrees. The amplitudes in the transverse direction (direction perpendicular to the incidence current) decreased by increasing the pontoon ratio for 0 and 45-deg incidences. The pontoons positioned aligned to the flow significantly reduced the amplitudes in the transverse direction since the pontoon presence in this position modified the incident wake in the downstream columns. The pontoon presence needs to be well investigated to choose the best condition to avoid raising the FIM or mitigating the FIM.

The present work deals with wave generation in fully nonlinear numerical wave tanks (NWT). As an alternative to modelling a moving (physical) wavemaker, a two-dimensional (2D) potential-flow NWT is coupled with an external spectral wave data (SWD) application programming interface (API). The NWT uses the harmonic polynomial cell (HPC) method to solve the governing Laplace equations for the velocity potential and its time derivative, and has previously been extensively validated and verified for numerous nonlinear wave-propagation problems using traditional wave-generation mechanisms. Periodic waves of different steepness generated with a stream-function theory as reference solution in the SWD API are first considered to investigate the method’s numerical accuracy. Thereafter, with a higher-order spectral method (HOSM) as the SWD API solution, irregular waves with different wave heights and water depths relevant for e.g. aquaculture and offshore structures are simulated. Differences between the HPC and HOSM solutions in and near steep crests are investigated. The study aims to demonstrate a robust method to generate and propagate general wave fields for further studies of nonlinear waves and wave-body interaction in both two and three dimensions.

A novel large reinforced HDPE cage system applied for the deep-sea aquaculture is proposed in this paper. This new structure is targeted at two main challenges facing by the deep-sea aquaculture. First, the deep-sea operation condition is much more complicated than in near shore area; second, the dynamic response and structure requirement of large-scale cages, which can be up to 80–100m in diameter and are significantly different to that of small HDPE cages. This study tackled with these two challenges by using the reinforced HDPE material and nested floating frame structure. In order to examine the integrity, safety and structure performance of this presented structure, the dynamic response of the structure subject to various working conditions are numerically simulated and analyzed in this paper. Simulation results of the new structure are compared to that of the traditional cage regarding the cage dynamic displacement, maximum strain/stress and net declination angle. The deformation results demonstrated that the maximum strain and stress on the cage collar of the new structure is much smaller than that of traditional design, and thus the new design can greatly reduce the local deformation of the cage collar and the declination angle to ensure the structure safety in severe sea conditions. The internal nested float frames can also be arranged with nets to make better use of the breeding space.

This paper presents a numerical study of the flow normal to a triangular plate. A total of four plates with the same frontal area A r and different curved edges are used. The curvature of edges is determined by the compression ratio k ( k = 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, 0.8; the large value of k corresponds to the large curvature of the edges). A disk of χ = 50 ( χ is the diameter-thickness aspect ratio) is used as the reference disk. The Reynolds number Re based on the characteristic length is up to 250. Four states are observed and denoted as: (I) steady and geometric symmetry state (SG); (II) steady and reflectional symmetry state (SR); (III) reflectional symmetry breaking with periodic flow (RSB); (IV) chaotic state (CS). The critical Reynolds numbers at the first two stages ( Re c 1 , Re c 2 ) decrease with the increasing k , indicating that flow of the plates with a larger curvature is more unstable. Therefore, we believe that the flow around a triangular plate is more stable than that around a circular disk.

Ice management in regions of offshore development with icebergs present includes re-direction of icebergs by means of towing. The prevention of tow-rope slippage and iceberg rolling due to hydrostatic instability are essential for an effective and safe operation. The ability to simulate any particular towing operation in the field, prior to attempting it, would provide some measure of assurance of its feasibility. In addition, such a model will allow optimization of towing configuration and application by showing optimal tow direction, maximum force and rate of force application; selection of single tow line or net; and optimum net configuration. The objective of the described work is to develop a simulation tool that can be used for such application. A previous project funded by Hibernia Management and Development Company Ltd. (HMDC) gathered 3-dimensional profile data on 29 icebergs off the East coast of Canada; and further data collection has been ongoing. The present project utilizes these profiles as valuable input in the development of the model for simulating single-line and net tows. This paper presents the first phase of development of a 3-D dynamic iceberg towing model that evolved from an earlier 2-D static version. The current iteration applies the ‘Total Lagrangian’ Finite-Element Method (FEM) to model the cable-and-rope structure between the towing vessel and iceberg, and a contact model that includes sticking and sliding friction between the rope/net and iceberg. The iceberg is modeled as a rigid surface mesh and is fully constrained against motion during the current phase of development, while the cables and ropes are modeled as elastic bar elements with translational inertia and velocity-squared fluid drag. The contact elements consist of penalty springs with proportional damping, and appropriate values of these are found to be critical for numerical stability of the solution. As well, due to the large difference in stiffness values between the heavy tow cable and buoyant ropes, special attention is given to obtaining the initial tangent stiffness matrix of the cable-and-rope structure. The FE dynamic equations of motion are solved implicitly in the time domain using a combination of full and modified Newton-Raphson iteration. Simulations of contact initiation between the rope and iceberg for single-loop and net configurations are presented, as well as slipping during particular single-loop tows. Current challenges and opportunities for further development are discussed, including improving computational speed, implementing iceberg motion, adding wind and wave forces, and validating rope-ice friction characteristics through small-scale iceberg towing response in a laboratory.

Fluid-structure interaction modeling tools based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) produce interesting results that can be used in the design of submerged structures. However, the computational cost of simulations associated with the design of submerged offshore structures is high. There are no high-performance platforms devoted to the analysis and optimization of these structures using CFD techniques. In this context, this work aims to present a computational tool dedicated to the construction of Kriging surrogate models in order to represent the time domain force responses of submerged risers. The force responses obtained from high-cost computational simulations are used as outputs for training and validated the surrogate models. In this case, different excitations are applied in the riser aiming at evaluating the representativeness of the obtained Kriging surrogate model. A similar investigation is performed by changing the number of samples and the total time used for training purposes. The present methodology can be used to perform the dynamic analysis in different submerged structures with a low computational cost. Instead of solving the motion equation associated with the fluid-structure system, a Kriging surrogate model is used. A significant reduction in computational time is expected, which allows the realization of different analyses and optimization procedures in a fast and efficient manner for the design of this type of structure.

In this work, the roll damping behavior of the offshore heavy lift DP3 installation vessel Orion from the DEME group is studied. Boundary element codes using potential flow theory require a roll damping coefficient to account for viscous effects. In this work, the roll damping coefficient is calculated using the Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) toolbox OpenFOAM. The two-phase Navier-Stokes fluid solver is coupled with a motion solver using a partitioned fluid-structure interaction algorithm. The roll damping is assessed by the Harmonic Excited Roll Motion (HERM) technique. An oscillating external moment is applied on the hull and the roll motion is tracked. Various amplitudes and frequencies of the external moment and different forward speeds, are numerically simulated. These high-fidelity full-scale simulations result in better estimations of roll damping coefficients for various conditions in order to enhance the accuracy of efficient boundary element codes for wave-current-structure interactions simulations.

This paper presents the first steps towards conceptual design for the underwater transportation of minerals from seabed to shore for deep sea mining (DSM). The methodology is based on conceptual design using a systematic approach. Abstraction was used to identify the fundamental entities of the problem, and a function structure containing the overall function and subfunctions was established based on the abstraction. Further, an extensive search for working principles (WP) was conducted in order to find forms associated with the functions. This was done by exploration of solutions within different industries such as the oil and gas industry, subsea industry and dredging industry. The discovered working principles were then listed and categorized based on their physical principles, i.e. classifying criteria. For each function, the working principles were combined into design catalogues with classifying criteria in the rows and columns. Further, compatibility between principles was reviewed. This led to the selection of four working structure sets: one based on ore moved as bulk, and three based on ore moved inside a container. The container-based solutions are different in how the container is moved: inside the cargo hold, carried outside, or towed by underwater vehicle. A completion of the last steps of the conceptual design process is needed to obtain a principle solution.

In this paper, we apply a CFD computer code to study the hydrodynamic behavior of a stand-alone cylinder and a dual coaxial-cylinder system (DCCS) via free-decay motion tests. The geometric proportions of a stand-alone cylinder and the inner and outer cylinder of the DCCS are chosen to be the same as those in [1] and [2], respectively, as ocean wave-energy converter (WEC) devices. Overset mesh based on the commercial code ‘Star-CCM+ 11’ is used to simulate the free-decay motion of the two systems. Five parameters chosen for the CFD implementation are: turbulence model, initial displacement, time step, number of prism layers and mesh size. Results obtained from using different values of these parameters are compared so as to confirm the validity of choices made. The hydrodynamic performance of the stand-alone cylinder and outer cylinder in the DCCS are compared with the experimental results to assess and validate the CFD models. In addition, the heave hydrodynamic coefficients, namely, the added mass and total damping, and ‘resonance’ frequency of the stand-alone cylinder and those of the inner cylinder of the DCCS, with the outer cylinder being fixed, are obtained by using the CFD procedure. The hydrodynamic coefficients of another stand-alone cylinder with the same dimensions as the inner cylinder of the dual-coaxial cylinder are also obtained by simulations. The vorticity-contour plots for the stand-alone cylinder and the outer cylinder in the DCCS in free-decay motion are presented and analyzed. Finally, the results of the three cases are compared to examine the effect of the outer cylinder on the heave hydrodynamic coefficients of the inner cylinder.

OpenFOAM (OF) represents an attractive and widely used open-source environment for simulating complex hydrodynamic scenarios with several implemented numerical methods and wide variety of problems it can be applied to. For commercial and open-source solvers, though, expertise and experience are required to get physical and reliable results. Here, without pretending to be exhaustive, we aim to contribute in highlighting advantages and challenges of some key computational fluid dynamics (CFD)-simulation tools, with focus on the OF platform. We examine the effect of grid type, grid size and time-evolution scheme. Dynamic-mesh techniques and their influence on local and global numerical results are discussed, as well as the use of an overset grid versus a deforming mesh. Lastly, possible error sources in CFD simulations are discussed. These numerical studies are performed investigating two complex hydrodynamic problems: 1. a fully-immersed flapping hydrofoil aimed to generate thrust, 2. a damaged and an intact ship section fixed in beam-sea waves, in forced heave and roll motion in calm water. In the first case, vortex-shedding and wake features are crucial; in the second case, free-surface flow effects play the key role while the importance of vortex-shedding and viscous-flow effects depends on the scenario. The first problem is solved with OF and validated with results from benchmark experiments. The second problem is solved using (A) OF, (B) an in-house CFD solver and (C) a fully-nonlinear potential-flow code. A and B assume laminar-flow conditions and use, respectively, a volume-of-fluid and a level-set technique to handle the free-surface evolution. C is considered to examine importance of nonlinear versus viscous effects for the examined problems. The results are compared against in-house experiments.

This paper deals with the black-box modeling of 3-DOF nonlinear maneuvering motion of surface ships by using system identification method based on BP neural network. A Mariner Class vessel is taken as the study object. The time series used in training and testing the network is the simulated data of a series of maneuvers, which is obtained by numerically solving the Abkowitz model using fourth-order Runge-Kutta method. A three-layer neural network is built to solve this multivariable regression fitting problem, and only one network model is trained to predict various ship maneuvers. Taking the mean squared error (MSE) as the loss function, the network’s weights are optimized by Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm effectively. The trained network is evaluated by several simulation tests, and it is shown that the network achieves good prediction ability and can predict the maneuvering motion as long as the control inputs and initial states of the ship motion are known.

In this study, four approaches are investigated to predict the motions and structural loads on a containership in waves. The Flockstra (1974) containership model is used as the benchmark for this study as extensive experimental data is available to compare to the predictions. The hydrodynamic loads and motions are predicted using strip theory, a zero speed Green’s functions panel method with forward speed correction, a fully unsteady 3D panel method and unsteady RANSE simulations for limited cases. Simulations are performed at Fn = 0.245 in head, stern quartering, and bow quartering seas for wave length to ship length ration λ/L of 0.35–1.40. The accuracy of each method, relative to experimental results, in predicting the amplitudes of heave, pitch, and roll are investigated. Vertical and horizontal bending moments, shear forces, and the torsional moment on the hull at midships and 0.25LBP forward and aft of midships are also calculated and compared with the measured values. Through comparison with experimental data, the relative uncertainty of all four methodologies in predicting both motions and structural loads are assessed and discussed. Overall, all linearized potential flow methods show a large discrepancy with the experimental loads, motivating the need for further studies on non-linear effects for this particular ship type. This paper has been prepared in the framework of the ISSC-ITTC special joint committee on uncertainty quantification in wave load estimation.

For underwater vehicles with protrusions (external structure), the geometric shape of the protrusions is bound to affect the local flow field of the vehicles during the moving process of the vehicles, thus affecting the generation, development and collapse of cavitation around the vehicles. The cavitation may break, fall off and collapse randomly, and other local movements may affect the motion attitude of the underwater vehicle. It is an effective method to study fluid dynamics to simulate prototype cases with small scale models. In this paper, we mainly use the small scale model test method to explore the cavitation motion characteristics of the vehicle in water with protrusions. Through the establishment of a set of vehicle motion test equipment under reduced pressure, a series of experiments were conducted on this basis to explore the motion characteristics of vehicle cavitation under different bump shapes. In this study, two high-speed cameras were used to simultaneously record cavitation generation, development, collapse and other characteristics, to analyze the bubble generation mechanism and scale characteristics caused by the bulge, and then to study the influence of cavitation induced by the bulge on the motion attitude of the vehicle.

The research of parametric rolling has encountered many challenging problems due to its nonlinearity. In this paper, an in-house CFD code HUST-Ship based on fully structured overset grids is used for the investigation of KCS parametric rolling, which can overcome the shortcomings of potential flow method. Modeling errors and numerical errors are presented to improve the credibility of CFD simulation. The grid and time step are studied for the quantification of numerical errors. The phenomenon of parametric rolling is successfully captured in the paper and motion responses of KCS have a good agreement with experimental data. The characteristics of motions, forces and moments under parametric rolling are investigated by using fast Fourier transform. The relationship between wave characteristics and motion responses of ship is revealed in this paper. Following, a simulation model with three DOFs’ model (heave-roll-pitch model) is used to investigate the influence of surge motion on parametric rolling. Result shows that the excluding of surge motion has no qualitative influence on the prediction of parametric rolling. In general, the simulation limited to heave-roll-pitch coupling is adequate for its capture.

In this article, a local scale, fully nonlinear coupled fluid-structural interaction (FSI) sugar kelp model has been developed using a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method. In this model, to be consistent with available experimental data, the sugar kelp is approximated as elongated rectangles with smoothed isosceles triangles at the ends and a single kelp model with one end fixed in a channel with constant current model is developed. Several different current speeds are simulated, and the resulting drag forces and calculated drag coefficients are validated by comparison with experimental data from the literature. In a previous study, a global scale model was developed using a computational structural dynamics (CSD) method to simulate macroalgae farming system and guide the system configuration design. In the global scale model, the hydrodynamic forces are calculated using Morison’s equation and the kinematics and dynamics of the sugar kelp are simplified and the group of kelps attached to the long line is modeled as a slender structure with the same length and an effective diameter such that the volumes are consistent with the real physical system. This simplified model matches the weight and buoyancy but adjusting the hydrodynamic properties when the general hydrodynamic coefficients are employed. Therefore, optimal hydrodynamic coefficients used in global scale model were determined to obtain the hydrodynamic force more accurately. The validated local scale model is then be applied to determine the hydrodynamic coefficients of the simplified sugar kelp model for global dynamic analysis.

CFD uncertainty analysis is a process to quantify the accuracy of numerical simulation results, and it is also a research hotspot in the past decades. ITTC(2017) requires uncertainty analysis of ship CFD simulation results, that is, verification and validation. In this paper, with reference to the recommended procedures by ITTC, the uncertainty of the CFD numerical simulation results of ship model resistance was analyzed. Based on the SST k-ω turbulence model, the Y+ values near the wall were set to 60,120,240, respectively. And for each and Y+ value, three different sets of grid densities were set respectively, and the uncertainty was analyzed. The results show that: 1) the results of Y+ at 60 and 120 were not validated, and the results at 240 was validated, 2) the selection of Y+ value has a significant effect on the numerical results, 3) increasing the mesh density can make the result converge, but it is not sure to get the result with the least error. Through the uncertainty analysis of CFD results, it is helpful to find a method to improve the accuracy of the numerical results.

Underwater Gliders are unique buoyancy propelled oceanographic profiling vehicles. Their speed and endurance in longitudinal motion are affected by the symmetry, sweep dihedral angle and span of the control surfaces. In the low-velocity regime, these parameters can be varied to examine the flow around the glider. They also affect the lift-to-drag ratio (L/D) essential for the manoeuvring path in longitudinal and transverse motions. In this paper, the sweep angle of the main wing of a blended wing autonomous underwater glider configuration is varied as 10°, 15°, 30°, 45° and 60° and the resulting hull forms are numerically simulated in the commercial software, STARCCM+. The main wing is a tapered NACA0018 section (taken as per the general arrangement requirement) with 1.5m chord at the root and 0. 1m at the tip. The numerical model is validated using the CFD results of NACA0012 airfoil from Sun.C et al, 2015 [1]. The hydrodynamic forces are obtained by varying the angle of attack (α) of the body from −15° to 15°, for flow velocity of 0.4m/s. The hydrodynamic coefficients (lift-to-drag ratios) and flow physics around the wing are analyzed to arrive at an optimum Lift-to-drag ratio for increased endurance.