NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF SHIPS IN HIGH SEAS USING A COUPLED SPH-FE APPROACH

摘要

Ship designers and operators need to know the limit-state responses of a vessel in high sea-conditions, preferably without resorting to expensive experiments. For accuracy reasons, the structural response of the vessel must also be considered. Numerical simulation employing Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) for the fluids and Finite Elements (FE) for the structure within one piece of software can provide a predictive capability for this situation. It will be demonstrated that the coupled SPH-FE approach can correctly predict the fluid-structure interaction (FSI) effects during the impact of a flexible cylinder on calm water, a scenario relevant to hull slamming for high speed vessels. FSI on a larger scale will be demonstrated by revealing the stresses in a flexible backbone structure of a 147m long segmented model of a generic frigate as it experiences waves. Also discussed is a novel approach to generate higher-order free-surface waves in SPH, an essential part of the overall ship response simulation.