Study of wave load computation based on diffraction theory

Abstract

With the development of the ocean resources, the design of the offshore platform attracts increasing attention. The wave load computation is an important part for the design of the offshore platform. Currently, model experiments are mainly used to get the wave load of the offshore platform, which is complex, inefficient, and error-prone. To improve the efficiency of calculation, more simplified formulas for the wave load computation were deduced based on the wave diffraction theory. Moreover, a simple method was proposed based on the Matlab and software was developed to calculate the wave load. Experiments were conducted by a designed cylinder floater model to obtain the values of the wave load. Some simulations were made to calculate the wave load under the condition that water depth, wave frequency and other relevant parameters were same with the experiments. The wave load values calculated by the software had similar change trends with that of the experiment data, which proved the feasibility of the formulas for the wave load computation based on diffraction theory and the accuracy of the numerical algorithm in the computation of wave load based on Matlab. Compared with the model experiments, the software based on the diffraction theory was a cheaper and convenient way to obtain the values of wave load when the platform in the ocean is designed. So the new method will improve the efficiency in the wave load computation and is in favour of the design of offshore platform.