Aframax in Numerical Wave Tank: From Classic Decay Test to the Ship Moored in Irregular Waves

Abstract

The prediction of ship motions in extreme seastates is very complex as it involves strong nonlinearities. It deals with high motions of the ship and implies strong mooring system loads. These seastates are usually modeled in tank tests but an alternative in the near future could be CFD computations. In this article, all required steps to setup and verify the hydrodynamic and numerical model are performed. The setup of the hydrodynamic and numerical model enable us to show that CFD computations of motion RAOS and pitch decay tests provide results in agreement with diffraction-radiation results. Wave only simulations enable us to verify that irregular waves are accurately modelled in the CFD domain. Since the wavemaker motion used in tank tests to generate irregular waves is not available, a process of linear back propagation is set up from the wave elevation on a wave probe in tank tests. High Order Spectral (HOS) simulations are performed to reproduce the seastate measured in tank tests. Finally, a test was performed to model the ship motions in irregular extreme waves with ICARE solver coupled to the computed HOS wave field through Spectral Wave Explicit Navier Stokes Equations (SWENSE).