Numerical Research on FPSOs With Green Water Occurrence

Abstract

Green water loads on sailing ships or floating structures occur when an incoming wave significantly exceeds freeboard and water runs onto the deck. In this paper, numerical programs developed based on the platform of the commercial software Fluent were used to numerically model green water occurrence on floating structures exposed to waves. The phenomena of the fixed floating production, storage, and offloading unit (FPSO) model and oscillating vessels in head waves have been simulated and analyzed. For the oscillating floating body case, a combination idea is presented in which the motions of the FPSO are calculated by the potential theory in advance and computional fluid dynamics (CFD) tools are used to investigate the details of green water. A technique of dynamic mesh is introduced in a numerical wave tank to simulate the green water occurrence on the oscillating vessels in waves. Numerical results agree well with the corresponding experimental results regarding the wave heights on deck and green water impact loads; the two-dimensional fixed FPSO model case conducted by Greco (2001), and the three-dimensional oscillating vessel cases by Buchner (2002), respectively. The research presented here indicates that the present numerical scheme and method can be used to actually simulate the phenomenon of green water on deck, and to predict and analyze the impact forces on floating structures due to green water. This can be of great significance in further guiding ship design and optimization, especially in the strength design of ship bows.