A route optimization methodology in the frame of an onboard decision support/guidance system for the ship’s master has been developed and is presented in this paper. The method aims at the minimization of the fuel voyage cost and the risks related to the ship’s seakeeping performance expected to be within acceptable limits of voyage duration. Parts of this methodology were implemented by interfacing alternative probability assessment methods, such as Monte Carlo, first order reliability method (FORM) and second order reliability method (SORM), and a 3-D seakeeping code, including a software tool for the calculation of the added resistance in waves of NTUA-SDL. The entire system was integrated within the probabilistic analysis software PROBAN. Two of the main modules for the calculation of added resistance and the probabilistic assessment for the considered seakeeping hazards with respect to exceedance levels of predefined threshold values are herein elaborated and validation studies proved their efficiency in view of their implementation into an on-board optimization system.

The wave diffraction and radiation around a floating body is considered within the framework of the linear potential theory in a fairly perfect fluid. The fluid domain extended infinitely in the horizontal directions but is limited by the sea bed, the body hull, and the part of the free surface excluding the body waterplane, and is subdivided into two subdomains according to the body geometry. The two subdomains are connected by a control surface in fluid. In each subdomain, the velocity potential is described by using the usual boundary integral representation involving Green functions. The boundary integral equations are then established by satisfying the boundary conditions and the continuous condition of the potential and the normal derivation across the control surface. This multi-domain boundary element method (MDBEM) is particularly interesting for bodies with a hull form including moonpools to which the usual BEM presents singularities and slow convergence of numerical results. The application of the MDBEM to study the resonant motion of a water column in moonpools shows that the MDBEM provides an efficient and reliable prediction method.

Extreme coastal events require careful prediction of wave forces. Recent tsunamis have resulted in extensive damage of coastal structures. Such scenarios are the result of the action of long waves on structures. In this paper, the efficiency of vegetation as a buffer system in attenuating the incident ocean waves was studied through a well controlled experimental program. The study focused on the measurement of forces resulting from cnoidal waves on a model building mounted over a slope in the presence and absence of vegetation. The vegetative parameters, along with the width of the green belt, its position from the reference line, the diameter of the individual stems as well as the spacing between them, and their rigidity are varied so as to obtain a holistic view of the wave-vegetation interaction problem. The effect of vegetation on variations of dimensional forces with a Keulegan-Carpenter number (KC) was discussed in this paper. It has been shown that when vegetal patches are present in front of structure, the forces could be limited to within F*?1, by a percentile of 92%, 90%, 55%, and 96%, respectively for gap ratios of 0.0, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5. The force is at its maximum for the gap ratio of 1.0 and beyond which the forces start to diminish.

Experimental investigations into the collapse behavior of a box-shape hull girder subjected to extreme wave-induced loads are presented. The experiment was performed using a scaled model in a tank. In the middle of the scaled model, sacrificial specimens with circular pillar and trough shapes which respectively show different bending moment-displacement characteristics were mounted to compare the dynamic collapse characteristics of the hull girder in waves. The specimens were designed by using finite element (FE)-analysis. Prior to the tank tests, static four-point-bending tests were conducted to detect the load-carrying capacity of the hull girder. It was shown that the load-carrying capacity of a ship including reduction of the capacity after the ultimate strength can be reproduced experimentally by employing the trough type specimens. Tank tests using these specimens were performed under a focused wave in which the hull girder collapses under once and repetitive focused waves. It was shown from the multiple collapse tests that the increase rate of collapse becomes higher once the load-carrying capacity enters the reduction path while the increase rate is lower before reaching the ultimate strength.

Because of its light weight, broadband, and adaptable properties, smart material has been widely applied in the active vibration control (AVC) of flexible structures. Based on a first-order shear deformation theory, by coupling the electrical and mechanical operation, a 4-node quadrilateral piezoelectric composite element with 24 degrees of freedom for generalized displacements and one electrical potential degree of freedom per piezoelectric layer was derived. Dynamic characteristics of a beam with discontinuously distributed piezoelectric sensors and actuators were presented. A linear quadratic regulator (LQR) feedback controller was designed to suppress the vibration of the beam in the state space using the high precise direct (HPD) integration method.

In this paper a hybrid process of modeling and optimization, which integrates a support vector machine (SVM) and genetic algorithm (GA), was introduced to reduce the high time cost in structural optimization of ships. SVM, which is rooted in statistical learning theory and an approximate implementation of the method of structural risk minimization, can provide a good generalization performance in metamodeling the input-output relationship of real problems and consequently cuts down on high time cost in the analysis of real problems, such as FEM analysis. The GA, as a powerful optimization technique, possesses remarkable advantages for the problems that can hardly be optimized with common gradient-based optimization methods, which makes it suitable for optimizing models built by SVM. Based on the SVM-GA strategy, optimization of structural scantlings in the midship of a very large crude carrier (VLCC) ship was carried out according to the direct strength assessment method in common structural rules (CSR), which eventually demonstrates the high efficiency of SVM-GA in optimizing the ship structural scantlings under heavy computational complexity. The time cost of this optimization with SVM-GA has been sharply reduced, many more loops have been processed within a small amount of time and the design has been improved remarkably.

The stress combination method for the fatigue assessment of the hatch corner of a bulk carrier was investigated based on equivalent waves. The principles of the equivalent waves of ship structures were given, including the determination of the dominant load parameter, heading, frequency, and amplitude of the equivalent regular waves. The dominant load parameters of the hatch corner of a bulk carrier were identified by the structural stress response analysis, and then a series of equivalent regular waves were defined based on these parameters. A combination method of the structural stress ranges under the different equivalent waves was developed for the fatigue analysis. The combination factors were obtained by least square regression analysis with the stress ranges derived from spectral fatigue analysis as the target value. The proposed method was applied to the hatch corner of another bulk carrier as an example. This shows that the results from the equivalent wave approach agree well with those from the spectral fatigue analysis. The workload is reduced substantially. This method can be referenced in the fatigue assessment of the hatch corner of a bulk carrier.

Mooring system plays an important role in station keeping of floating offshore structures. Coupled analysis on mooring-buoy interactions has been increasingly studied in recent years. At present, chains and wire ropes are widely used in offshore engineering practice. On the basis of mooring line statics, an explicit formulation of single mooring chain/wire rope stiffness coefficients and mooring stiffness matrix of the mooring system were derived in this article, taking into account the horizontal restoring force, vertical restoring force and their coupling terms. The nonlinearity of mooring stiffness was analyzed, and the influences of various parameters, such as material, displacement, pre-tension and water depth, were investigated. Finally some application cases of the mooring stiffness in hydrodynamic calculation were presented. Data shows that this kind of stiffness can reckon in linear and nonlinear forces of mooring system. Also, the stiffness can be used in hydrodynamic analysis to get the eigenfrequency of slow drift motions.

A set of parametric stress analyses was carried out for two-planar tubular DKT-joints under different axial loading conditions. The analysis results were used to present general remarks on the effects of the geometrical parameters on stress concentration factors (SCFs) at the inner saddle, outer saddle, and crown positions on the central brace. Based on results of finite element (FE) analysis and through nonlinear regression analysis, a new set of SCF parametric equations was established for fatigue design purposes. An assessment study of equations was conducted against the experimental data and original SCF database. The satisfaction of acceptance criteria proposed by the UK Department of Energy (UK DoE) was also checked. Results of parametric study showed that highly remarkable differences exist between the SCF values in a multi-planar DKT-joint and the corresponding SCFs in an equivalent uni-planar KT-joint having the same geometrical properties. It can be clearly concluded from this observation that using the equations proposed for uni-planar KT-connections to compute the SCFs in multi-planar DKT-joints will lead to either considerably under-predicting or over-predicting results. Hence, it is necessary to develop SCF formulae specially designed for multi-planar DKT-joints. Good results of equation assessment according to UK DoE acceptance criteria, high values of correlation coefficients, and the satisfactory agreement between the predictions of the proposed equations and the experimental data guarantee the accuracy of the equations. Therefore, the developed equations can be reliably used for fatigue design of offshore structures.

The cylindrical shell is one of the main structural parts in ocean engineering structures. These cylinders are mostly of medium length, which means that the radius of the cross section is significantly smaller than the length of the cylindrical shell. From the viewpoint of the shell theory, they belong to the mid-long cylindrical shell category. To solve mechanical problems on this kind of structure, especially a cracked cylindrical shell, analysis based on shell theory is necessary. At present the generally used solving system for the mid-long cylindrical shell is too complicated, difficult to solve, and inapplicable to engineering. This paper introduced the Sanders’ mid-long cylindrical shell theory which reduces the difficulty of the solution process, and will be suitable for solving problems with complicated boundary conditions. On this basis, the engineering applications of this theory were discussed in conjunction with the problem of a mid-long cylindrical shell having a circumferential crack. The solution process is simple, and the closed form solution can usually be found. In practical engineering applications, it gives satisfactory precision.

The basic configuration of a new type of subsea pipeline connector was proposed based on the press-fitting principle, and a parametric finite element model was created using APDL language in ANSYS. Combining the finite element model and optimization technology, the dimension optimization aiming at obtaining the minimum loading force and the optimum sealing performance was designed by the zero order optimization method. Experiments of the optimized connector were carried out. The results indicate that the optimum structural design significantly improved the indicators of the minimum loading force and sealing performance of the connector.

A jack-up platform, with its particular structure, showed obvious dynamic characteristics under complex environmental loads in extreme conditions. In this paper, taking a simplified 3-D finite element dynamic model in extreme storm conditions as research object, a transient dynamic analysis method was proposed, which was under both regular and irregular wave loads. The steps of dynamic analysis under extreme conditions were illustrated with an applied case, and the dynamic amplification factor (DAF) was calculated for each response parameter of base shear, overturning moment and hull sway. Finally, the structural response results of dynamic and static were compared and analyzed. The results indicated that the static strength analysis of the Jack-up Platforms was not enough under the dynamic loads including wave and current, further dynamic response analysis considering both computational efficiency and accuracy was necessary.

Spatial correlation of sound pressure and particle velocity of the surface noise in horizontally stratified media was demonstrated, with directional noise sources uniformly distributed on the ocean surface. In the evaluation of particle velocity, plane wave approximation was applied to each incident ray. Due to the equivalence of the sound source correlation property and its directivity, solutions for the spatial correlation of the field were transformed into the integration of the coherent function generated by a single directional source. As a typical horizontally stratified media, surface noise in a perfect waveguide was investigated. Correlation coefficients given by normal mode and geometric models show satisfactory agreement. Also, the normalized covariance between sound pressure and the vertical component of particle velocity is proportional to acoustic absorption coefficient, while that of the surface noise in semi-infinitely homogeneous space is zero.

The major constraint on the performance of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based underwater acoustic (UWA) communication is to keep subcarriers orthogonal. In this paper, Doppler estimation and the respective compensation technique along with various diversity techniques were deliberated for OFDM-based systems best suited for underwater wireless information exchange. In practice, for mobile communication, adjustment and tuning of transducers in order to get spatial diversity is extremely difficult. Considering the relatively low coherence bandwidth in UWA, the frequency diversity design with the Doppler compensation function was elaborated here. The outfield experiments of mobile underwater acoustic communication (UWAC) based on OFDM were carried out with 0.17 bit/(s?Hz) spectral efficiency. The validity and the dependability of the scheme were also analyzed.

A novel flywheel energy storage (FES) motor/generator (M/G) was proposed for marine systems. The purpose was to improve the power quality of a marine power system (MPS) and strengthen the energy recycle. Two structures including the magnetic or non-magnetic inner-rotor were contrasted in the magnetostatic field by using finite element analysis (FEA). By optimally designing the size parameters, the average speed of FEA results of was 17 200 r/m, and the current was controlled between 62 and 68 A in the transient field. The electrical machine electromagnetism design was further optimized by the FEA in the temperature field, to find the local overheating point under the normal operation condition and provide guidance for the cooling system. Finally, it can be concluded from the comprehensive physical field analysis that the novel redundant structure M/G can improve the efficiency of the M/G and maintain the stability of the MPS.