Slamming and green water loads on a ship sailing in regular waves predicted by a coupled CFD–FEA approach

Abstract

A numerical simulation method is presented by integrating Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) solvers to predict ship wave loads and slamming loads taking into account hydroelastic effects. The interest of this study mainly lies in the slamming and green water pressures acting on a flexible ship investigated by the coupled CFD–FEA method. Firstly, verification and sensitivity analysis of the wave loads and slamming pressures on the S175 containership evaluated by the coupled CFD–FEA method is conducted by comparing the results using different mesh sizes and time step schemes. Discussion on the effect of hydroelasticity on impact pressures is also conducted. Then a comprehensive analysis on the global motions, wave loads, slamming and green water pressures of the ship in different regular wave conditions is undertaken. Finally, a simplified bow flare and bottom slamming pressure estimation method based on the seakeeping data of incident wave and ship global motions are proposed, which can reduce the computational burden of the two-way fluid-structure interaction simulations when impact pressure is concerned.