A Prediction Method of Hydroelastic Motion of Aircushion Type Floating Structures Considering With Draft Effect Into Hydrodynamic Forces

Abstract

An aircushion type floating structure can prevent to enlarge the wave drifting force restraining the hydroelastic response of it in water waves. The floating structure should be large scale to incident waves in order to make the best use of such advantages, i.e. it is a very large floating structure. The linear potential theory is useful to easily handle the wave force etc. on the aircushion type floating structure theoretically because it is predicted that its theory can give good results of behaviors of water elevation within aircushions and pressure and of wave loads on the structure qualitatively. The authors have confirmed from our past model experiments that non-linear effect does not always increase but for some exceptions. A prediction method of hydroelastic responses for the aircushion type very large floating structure by using the three-dimensional linear potential theory is shown in this paper. The validity of the method is proven and the application of the method is investigated by comparing the theoretical results with the results of the past model experiments.