This research proposes a new offshore wind energy generation system that uses a tension leg platform (TLP) and describes experiments performed on a TLP type wind turbine in both waves and wind. The following conclusions can be made from the results of this research. 1) In the case of coexisting wave-wind fields, the wind effect stabilizes the pitch motion. 2) The wind effect decreases vibration of the mooring lines when waves and wind coexist. In particular, the springing (2nd or 3rd order force) also decreases in this field. 3) It can be estimated that the reduction in the rate of generation of electrical power can be up to about 6% as a result of the heel angle. In addition, the annual amount of electricity generated was estimated along with the utilization factor based on the experimental results.

An experimental program was undertaken to test the feasibility to detect the occurrence of structural damage using a modified mode shape difference technique. The vibration response of a steel beam fixed at one end and hinged at the other was obtained for the intact and damage conditions. Modal analysis was performed to extract the frequencies and mode shapes. The method shows a good potential in detection of occurrence and location of damage.

Flexible risers and steel catenary risers often provide unique riser solutions for today’s deepwater field development. Accurate analysis of these slender structures, in which there are high-speed HP/HT internal flows, is critical to ensure personnel and asset safety. In this study, a special global coordinate-based FEM rod model was adopted to identify and quantify the effects of internal flow and hydrostatic pressure on both flexible and deepwater steel catenary risers, with emphasis on the latter. By incorporating internal flow induced forces into the model, it was found that the internal flow contributes a new term to the effective tension expression. For flexible risers in shallow water, internal flow and hydrostatic pressure made virtually no change to effective tension by merely altering the riser wall tension. In deep water the internal pressure wielded a dominant role in governing the riser effective tension and furthering the static configuration, while the effect of inflow velocity was negligible. With respect to the riser seabed interaction, both the seabed support and friction effect were considered, with the former modeled by a nonlinear quadratic spring, allowing for a consistent derivation of the tangent stiffness matrix. The presented application examples show that the nonlinear quadratic spring is, when using the catenary solution as an initial static profile, an efficient way to model the quasi-Winkler-type elastic seabed foundation in this finite element scheme.

It is hypothesized that steady anguilliform swimming motion of aquatic animals is purely reactive such that no net vortex wake is left downstream. This is versus carangiform and tunniform swimming of fish, where vortex streams are shed from tail, fins, and body. But there the animal movements are such to produce partial vortex cancellation downstream in maximizing propulsive efficiency. In anguilliform swimming characteristic of the eel family, it is argued that the swimming motions are configured by the animal such that vortex shedding does not occur at all. However, the propulsive thrust in this case is higher order in the motion amplitude, so that relatively large coils are needed to produce relatively small thrust; the speeds of anguilliform swimmers are less than the carangiform and tunniform, which develop first order thrusts via lifting processes. Results of experimentation on live lamprey are compared to theoretical prediction which assumes the no-wake hypothesis. Two-dimensional analysis is first performed to set the concept. This is followed by three-dimensional analysis using slender-body theory. Slender-body theory has been applied by others in studying anguilliform swimming, as it is ideally suited to the geometry of the lamprey and other eel-like animals. The agreement between this new approach based on the hypothesis of wakeless swimming and the experiments is remarkably good in spite of the physical complexities.

Propulsion of liquefied natural gas (LNG) ships is undergoing significant change. The traditional steam plant is losing favor because of its low cycle efficiency. Medium-speed diesel-electric and slow-speed diesel-mechanical drive ships are in service, and more are being built. Another attractive alternative is combined gas and steam turbine (COGAS) drive. This approach offers significant advantages over steam and diesel propulsion. This paper presents the case for the COGAS cycle.

The water entry problem of an asymmetric wedge with roll motion was analyzed by the method of a modified Logvinovich model (MLM). The MLM is a kind of analytical model based on the Wagner method, which linearizes the free surface condition and body boundary condition. The difference is that the MLM applies a nonlinear Bernoulli equation to obtain pressure distribution, which has been proven to be helpful to enhance the accuracy of hydrodynamic loads. The Wagner condition in this paper was generalized to solve the problem of the water entry of a wedge body with rotational velocity. The comparison of wet width between the MLM and a fully nonlinear numerical approach was given, and they agree well with each other. The effect of angular velocity on the hydrodynamic loads of a wedge body was investigated.

The present investigation deals with process analysis of oxy-acetylene flame assisted double pass line heating for varying plate thickness. oxy-acetylene flame as the heat source for multi pass line heating to achieve 3-D bending of plates with varying thicknesses was studied. The oxy-acetylene flame was modeled as the moving heat source in the FEM analysis. The transient thermal histories were predicted taking into account the temperature dependent thermo-mechanical properties. A comparative study between single pass and double pass line heating residual deformation was also carried out. The temperature distribution and residual deformations predicted by the numerical model developed in the present work compared fairly well with those of the experimental ones.

Prandtl’s lifting line theory was generalized to the lifting problem of a three-dimensional hydrofoil in the presence of a free surface. Similar to the classical lifting theory, the singularity distribution method was utilized to solve two-dimensional lifting problems for the hydrofoil beneath the free surface at the air-water interface, and a lifting line theory was developed to correct three-dimensional effects of the hydrofoil with a large aspect ratio. Differing from the classical lifting theory, the main focus was on finding the three-dimensional Green function of the free surface induced by the steady motion of a system of horseshoe vortices under the free surface. Finally, numerical examples were given to show the relationship between the lift coefficient and submergence Froude numbers for 2-D and 3-D hydrofoils. If the submergence Froude number is small free surface effect will be significant registered as the increase of lift coefficient. The validity of these approaches was examined in comparison with the results calculated by other methods.

An analytical study was presented on active control of sound transmission into a vibro-acoustic enclosure comprising two flexible plates. Two types of actuators were used, i.e. acoustic actuator and distributed lead zirconate titanate piezoelectric (PZT) actuator instead of point force actuator. Using the modal acoustic transfer impedance-mobility matrices, the excitation and interaction in the coupled sound transmission system can be described with clear physical significance. With the control system designed to globally reduce the sound field, different control system configurations were considered, including the structural actuator on the incident plate, actuator on the receiving plate, acoustic actuator on the cavity, and their combinations. The effectiveness and performance of the control strategy corresponding to each system configuration were compared and discussed. The role and control mechanism of each type of actuator were of particular interest. It was shown that the incident plate actuator is effective in controlling the cavity-dominated modes and the structural modes dominated by the incident plate and receiving plate. Two main control mechanisms are involved in this control configuration, i.e., modal suppressing and modal rearrangement. For control system configuration with only acoustic actuator in the enclosure, the mechanism involved in this arrangement is purely modal suppression. Desirable placements of structural actuators in terms of total potential energy reduction were also discussed.

In considering the theory of structural dynamic optimization design, a design method of the structural style of ship composite brace with rigid vibration isolation mass was studied. Two kinds of structural dynamic optimization formulations minimizing the vibration acceleration of the non-pressure hull on the restraining condition of the gross weight of the ship cabin were established: 1) dynamic optimization of the sectional dimensions of the rigid vibration isolation mass in the composite brace; 2) dynamic optimization of the arranging position of the rigid vibration isolation mass. Through the optimization results, sectional dimensions and the arranging position of the rigid vibration isolation mass with better performance in reducing vibration were gained, and some reference was provided for practical engineering designs as well as enrichment of the design method of a novel ship vibration-isolation brace.

An analytic method, i.e. the homotopy analysis method, was applied for constructing the solutions of the short waves model equations associated with the Degasperis-Procesi (DP) shallow water waves equation. The explicit analytic solutions of loop soliton governing the propagation of short waves were obtained. By means of the transformation of independent variables, an analysis one-loop soliton solution expressed by a series of exponential functions was obtained, which agreed well with the exact solution. The results reveal the validity and great potential of the homotopy analysis method in solving complicated solitary water wave problems.

An array extension method in a noisy environment was proposed to improve angular resolution and array gain. The proposed method combines the FOC (fourth-order cumulants) technique with the ETAM (extended towed array measurements) method to extend array aperture and suppress Gaussian noise. First, successive measurements of a virtual uniform linear array were constructed by applying fourth-order cumulants to measurements of uniform linear array; Gaussian noise in these measurements was also eliminated. Then, the array was extended by compensating phase differences using the ETAM method. Finally, the synthetic aperture was extended further by the fourth-order cumulants technique. The proposed FOC-ETAM-FOC method not only improves angular resolution and array gain, but also effectively suppresses Gaussian noise. Furthermore, it inherits the advantages of the ETAM method. Simulation results showed that the FOC-ETAM-FOC method achieved better angular resolution and array gain than the ETAM method. Furthermore this method outperforms the ETAM method in Gaussian noise environment.

The double-peak characteristic of underwater radiated noise in the near field on top of the target submarine was analyzed in depth on the basis of submarine test data on the sea. The contribution of three major noise sources to the radiated noise of a submarine were compared and analyzed, and emphasis was put on the original source, production mechanism, and their correlative characteristics. On the basis of analysis on underwater tracking and pass through characteristics of the target submarine, the double-peak phenomenon was reasonably interpreted. Furthermore, the correctness of the theoretical interpretation was verified adequately in real submarine tests. The double-peak phenomenon indicates that the space distributing character on submarine radiated noise are both asymmetrical with time and space, whereas that is provided with directivity. Studying the double-peak phenomenon in depth has important reference value and meaning in engineering practice for understanding the underwater radiated noise field of submarines.

In order to minimize the harm caused by the instability of a planing craft, a motion prediction model is essential. This paper analyzed the feasibility of using an MGM(1,N) model in grey system theory to predict planing craft motion and carried out the numerical simulation experiment. According to the characteristics of planing craft motion, a recurrence formula was proposed of the parameter matrix of an MGM(1,N) model. Using this formula, data can be updated in real-time without increasing computational complexity significantly. The results of numerical simulation show that using an MGM(1,N) model to predict planing motion is feasible and useful for prediction. So the method proposed in this study can reflect the planing craft motion mechanism successfully, and has rational and effective functions of forecasting and analyzing trends.

Propeller blade width measurement has been extensively studied in the past using direct and indirect methods, and it plays a great role in determining the quality of the finished products. It has surveyed that previous techniques are usually time-consuming and erroneous due to a large number of points to be processed in blade width measurement. This paper proposes a new method of measuring blade width using two images acquired from different viewpoints of the same blade. And a new feature points matching approach for propeller blade image is proposed in stereo vision measurement. Based on these, pixel coordinates of contour points of the blade in two images are extracted and converted to real world coordinates by image algorithm and binocular stereo machine vision theory. Then, from the real world coordinates, the blade width at any position can be determined by simple geometrical method.