AN EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF A BOX-SHAPED OBJECT IN MOONPOOL; A THREE-DIMENSIONAL STUDY

The forced heave motion of a dummy ship model with moonpool, including a fixed box-shaped object, was realized experimentally in the Towing tank at MARINTEK. The blockage effect caused by a large object was investigated. Regular and irregular forced heave motions were imposed. In the regular motion tests, four forcing amplitudes, and 11 forcing periods near the piston-mode resonance period were tested. PVC3D (Potential Viscous Code) was used to study the regular heave motion problem numerically. PVC3D is a code developed at MARINTEK, in collaboration with Statoil RDI, which couples a Navier-Stokes solver with the linear potential flow theory for the free-surface waves. PVC3D has in previous studies proven to be fast, robust and accurate for marine resonance problems. It has not previously been validated for object in moonpool. Here, a validation study is presented. The moonpool response is well predicted by PVC3D both for the case of empty moonpool and moonpool with object. The studied object has a non-negligible blockage effect in resonant condition.