Hydroelastic response of square VLFS with line hinge connector system

Abstract

This paper investigates the hydroelastic response of pontoon-type, very large floating structures (VLFS) with a line hinge connector system under wave action. In the hydroelastic analysis, the water is assumed to be an ideal fluid and its motion is irrotational so that a velocity potential exists. The VLFS is modeled as an isotropic plate according to the Mindlin plate theory. In order to decouple the fluid-structure interaction problem, the modal expansion method is adopted for the hydroelastic analysis which is carried out in the frequency domain. The boundary element method is used to solve the Laplace equation for the velocity potential, whereas the finite element method is employed for solving the equations of motion of the floating plate. One, two, three and four line hinge connectors along two directions for a square-shaped VLFS are considered. The effects of the wavelength and heading angle on the hydroelastic response and the stress-resultants of the VLFS are investigated. Copyright © 2011 by ASME.