Numerical Simulations on the Flooding into a Damaged Cabin with a Flexible Bulkhead Based on the Mixed-Mode Function-Modified MPS Method

Abstract

Floodwater entering the damaged cabin and impacting the bulkhead can cause damage to the watertight compartment and affect the survival of the ship. The elastic deformation of the bulkhead can slow down the impact and affect the flow field, which affects the hydrodynamic distribution inside the cabin. In this work, numerical simulations on the flooding phenomena into the damaged cabin with various stiffness, watertight bulkheads are carried out by using the mixed-mode function-modified moving particle semi-implicit (MPS) method, with the objective of investigating the influence of the stiffness of the watertight bulkheads on the structural impact load. Firstly, the numerical model based on the MPS method is set up to predict the dam-break wave impact load on an elastic plate and compared with the experimental measurements to verify the feasibility of the method. Then, the evolution of the flooding process of the damaged cabin with four different stiffnesses are simulated and the impact pressure on the bulkhead is predicted and compared. It is found that the flexible watertight bulkheads not only can reduce the peak pressure acting on it, but also have an effect on the hydrodynamic pressure distribution of the entire cabin. This implies that properly selected stiffness and material properties of watertight bulkheads can mitigate the impact of flooding on the damaged cabin’s bulkheads.