Parametric roll of container ships in head waves

Abstract

Analysis of ship parametric roll has generally been restricted to simple analytical models and sophisticated time domain simulations. Simple analytical models do not capture all the critical dynamics while time-domain simulations are often time consuming to implement. The model presented in this paper captures the essential dynamics of the system without over simplification. This work incorporates various important aspects of the system and assesses the significance of including or ignoring these aspects. Special consideration is given to the fact that a hull form asymmetric about the design waterline would not lead to a perfectly harmonic variation in metacentric height. Many of the previous works on parametric roll make the assumption of linearized and harmonic behaviour of the time-varying restoring arm or metacentric height. This assumption enables modelling the roll motion as a Mathieu equation. This paper provides a critical assessment of this assumption and suggests modelling the roll motion as a Hills equation. Also the effects of non-linear damping are included to evaluate its effect on the bounded parametric roll amplitude in a simplified manner.