A numerical study of passing ship effects on a moored ship in confined waterways with new benchmark cases

Abstract

This study aims at a comprehensive investigation of passing ship effects on a moored ship in confined waterways with high blockage, referring to the new benchmark cases from the latest MASHCON conference. The whole process of a KCS container ship passing a moored Neo-Panamax container ship is simulated by combining the URANS method with the dynamic overset mesh technique. The hydrodynamic forces and moments, attitudes of the moored ship, and ship-generated waves are predicted. Firstly, the case with 10% UKC is simulated for validation. The results indicate that the numerical layout with a larger initial longitudinal distance between the two ships presents more accurate results agreeing well with the test data. Then, based on the validated method, the effects of tank width, water depth, lateral passing distance and passing ship speed are analyzed and are quantified by curve fittings in terms of the amplitudes of hydrodynamic quantities. It is found that these parameters have remarkable impacts on the moored ship, among which the passing speed is the most significant factor. In addition, the ship-generated drawdown dominates in the whole passing process, which causes prominent variations of the hydrodynamic quantities and induces pronounced pressure reductions on the moored ship.