Experimental and theoretical studies of drag embedment plate anchors recently carried out in Tianjin University are summarized in this research paper, which involve a series of important topics relevant to the study of drag anchors. The techniques for measuring the trajectory and movement direction of drag anchors in soils, the techniques for measuring the moving embedment point and reverse catenary shape of the embedded drag line, the penetration mechanism and kinematic behavior of drag anchors, the ultimate embedment depth of drag anchors, the movement direction of the anchor with an arbitrary fluke section, the reverse catenary properties of the embedded drag line, the interactional properties between drag anchor and installation line, the kinematic model of drag anchors in seabed soils, and the analytical method for predicting the anchor trajectory in soils will all be examined. The present work remarkably reduces the uncertainties in design and analysis of drag embedment plate anchors, and is beneficial to improving the application of this new type of drag anchor in offshore engineering.

Risk analysis of key systems have become a growing topic late of because of the development of offshore structures. Equipment failures of offloading system and fire accidents were analyzed based on the floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) features. Fault tree analysis (FTA), and failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) methods were examined based on information already researched on modules of relex reliability studio (RRS). Equipment failures were also analyzed qualitatively by establishing a fault tree and Boolean structure function based on the shortage of failure cases, statistical data, and risk control measures examined. Failure modes of fire accident were classified according to the different areas of fire occurrences during the FMEA process, using risk priority number (RPN) methods to evaluate their severity rank. The qualitative analysis of FTA gave the basic insight of forming the failure modes of FPSO offloading, and the fire FMEA gave the priorities and suggested processes. The research has practical importance for the security analysis problems of FPSO.

The numerical prediction of added resistance and vertical ship motions of one ITTC (International Towing Tank Conference) S-175 containership in regular head waves by our own in-house unsteady RANS solver naoe-FOAM-SJTU is presented in this paper. The development of the solver naoe-FOAM-SJTU is based on the open source CFD tool, OpenFOAM. Numerical analysis is focused on the added resistance and vertical ship motions (heave and pitch motions) with four very different wavelengths ( ) in regular head waves. Once the wavelength is near the length of the ship model, the responses of the resistance and ship motions become strongly influenced by nonlinear factors, as a result difficulties within simulations occur. In the paper, a comparison of the experimental results and the nonlinear strip theory was reviewed and based on the findings, the RANS simulations by the solver naoe-FOAM-SJTU were considered competent with the prediction of added resistance and vertical ship motions in a wide range of wave lengths.

Sloshing of liquid can increase the dynamic pressure on the storage sidewalls and bottom in tanker ships and LNG careers. Different geometric shapes were suggested for storage tank to minimize the sloshing pressure on tank perimeter. In this research, a numerical code was developed to model liquid sloshing in a rectangular partially filled tank. Assuming the fluid to be inviscid, Laplace equation and nonlinear free surface boundary conditions are solved using coupled FEM-BEM. The code performance for sloshing modeling is validated against available data. To minimize the sloshing pressure on tank perimeter, rectangular tanks with specific volumes and different aspect ratios were investigated and the best aspect ratios were suggested. The results showed that the rectangular tank with suggested aspect ratios, not only has a maximum surrounded tank volume to the constant available volume, but also reduces the sloshing pressure efficiently.

Nonlinear interactions among incident wave, tank-sloshing and floating body coupling motion are investigated. The fully nonlinear sloshing and body-surface nonlinear free surface hydrodynamics is simulated using a Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline (NURBS) higher-order panel method in time domain based on the potential theory. A robust and stable improved iterative procedure (Yan and Ma, 2007) for floating bodies is used for calculating the time derivative of velocity potential and floating body motion. An energy dissipation condition based on linear theory adopted by Huang (2011) is developed to consider flow viscosity effects of sloshing flow in nonlinear model. A two-dimensional tank model test was performed to identify its validity. The present nonlinear coupling sway motion results are subsequently compared with the corresponding Rognebakke and Faltinsen (2003)’s experimental results, showing fair agreement. Thus, the numerical approach presented in this paper is expected to be very efficient and realistic in evaluating the coupling effects of nonlinear sloshing and body motion.

The development of a two dimensional numerical wave tank (NWT) with a rocker or piston type wavemaker based on the high order boundary element method (BEM) and mixed Eulerian-Lagrangian (MEL) is examined. The cauchy principle value (CPV) integral is calculated by a special Gauss type quadrature and a change of variable. In addition the explicit truncated Taylor expansion formula is employed in the time-stepping process. A modified double nodes method is assumed to tackle the corner problem, as well as the damping zone technique is used to absorb the propagation of the free surface wave at the end of the tank. A variety of waves are generated by the NWT, for example; a monochromatic wave, solitary wave and irregular wave. The results confirm the NWT model is efficient and stable.

This paper presents a study on the numerical simulation of planing crafts sailing in regular waves. This allows an accurate estimate of the seas keeping performance of the high speed craft. The simulation set in six-degree of freedom motions is based on the Reynolds averaged Navier Stokes equations volume of fluid (RANSE VOF) solver. The trimming mesh technique and integral dynamic mesh method are used to guarantee the good accuracy of the hydrodynamic force and high efficiency of the numerical simulation. Incident head waves, oblique waves and beam waves are generated in the simulation with three different velocities (Fn =1.0, 1.5, 2.0). The motions and sea keeping performance of the planing craft with waves coming from different directions are indicated in the flow solver. The ship designer placed an emphasis on the effects of waves on sailing amplitude and pressure distribution of planing craft in the configuration of building high speed crafts.

The creation of geometric model of a ship to determine the characteristics of hydrostatic and hydrodynamic, and also for structural design and equipments arrangement are so important in the ship design process. Planning tunnel high speed craft is one of the crafts in which, achievement to their top speed is more important. These crafts with the use of tunnel have the aero-hydrodynamics properties to diminish the resistance, good sea-keeping behavior, reduce slamming and avoid porpoising. Because of the existence of the tunnel, the hull form generation of these crafts is more complex and difficult. In this paper, it has attempted to provide a method based on geometry creation guidelines and with an entry of the least control and hull form adjustment parameters, to generate automatically the hull form of planning tunnel craft. At first, the equations of mathematical model are described and subsequent, three different models generated based on present method are compared and analyzed. Obviously, the generated model has more application in the early stages of design.

The most complicated component in cavitating flow and pressure distribution is the flow in the cavity closure line. The cavitating flow and pressure distribution provide critical aspects of flow field details in the region. The integral of pressure results of the hydrodynamic forces, indicate domination in the design of a supercavitating vehicle. An experiment was performed in a water tunnel to investigate the pressure characteristics of the cavity closure region. Ventilation methods were employed to generate artificial cavity, and the ventilation rate was adjusted accordingly to obtain the desired cavity length. An array of pressure transducers was laid down the cavity closure line to capture pressure distribution in this region. The experimental results show that there is a pressure peak in the cavity closure region, and the rise rate of pressure in space tends to be higher in the upwind side when the flow is non-axisymmetric. The transient pressure variations during the cavity formation procedure were also present. The method of measurement in this paper can be referenced by engineers. The result helps to study the flow pattern of cavity closure region, and it can also be used to analyze the formation of supercavitating vehicle hydrodynamics.

As well as shock wave and bubble pulse loading, cavitation also has very significant influences on the dynamic response of surface ships and other near-surface marine structures to underwater explosive loadings. In this paper, the acoustic-structure coupling method embedded in ABAQUS is adopted to do numerical analysis of underwater explosion considering cavitation. Both the shape of bulk cavitation region and local cavitation region are obtained, and they are in good agreement with analytical results. The duration of reloading is several times longer than that of a shock wave. In the end, both the single computation and parallel computation of the cavitation effect on the dynamic responses of a full-scale ship are presented, which proved that reloading caused by cavitation is non-ignorable. All these results are helpful in understanding underwater explosion cavitation effects.

The examination of an unstructured finite volume method for structural dynamics is assessed for simulations of systematic impact dynamics. A robust display dual-time stepping method is utilized to obtain time accurate solutions. The study of impact dynamics is a complex problem that should consider strength models and state equations to describe the mechanical behavior of materials. The current method has several features. 1) Discrete equations of unstructured finite volume method naturally follow the conservation law. 2) Display dual-time stepping method is suitable for the analysis of impact dynamic problems of time accurate solutions. 3) The method did not produce grid distortion when large deformation appeared. The method is validated by the problem of impact dynamics of an elastic plate with initial conditions and material properties. The results validate the finite element numerical data.

When an oceanographic vessel is sailing, the currents near the surface of ship hull are rapid, making it hard to meet the environmental requirements of scientific observation equipment. To guarantee the installation space and environmental requirements of the observation equipment, the drop keel system was proposed for the first time for ocean-graphic ships at China, to avoid the traditional "rudder-shaft" type fin keel’s disadvantage. The research study will examine the operational mechanism and functions of the drop keel system, the operating conditions of the fin keel to determine the driver method and its arrangement, and the locking method of the fin keel underwater. The research will also provide some general designs for analyzing the best plan for the drop keel system.

The present paper discusses the modeling of tool geometry effects on the friction stir aluminum welds using response surface methodology. The friction stir welding tools were designed with different shoulder and tool probe geometries based on a design matrix. The matrix for the tool designing was made for three types of tools, based on three types of probes, with three levels each for defining the shoulder surface type and probe profile geometries. Then, the effects of tool shoulder and probe geometries on friction stirred aluminum welds were experimentally investigated with respect to weld strength, weld cross section area, grain size of weld and grain size of thermo-mechanically affected zone. These effects were modeled using multiple and response surface regression analysis. The response surface regression modeling were found to be appropriate for defining the friction stir weldment characteristics.

Location aware management and location based automation are fast upcoming technologies which are facilitated by availability of reliable, accurate, and cheap global positioning systems and location based services. This paper discusses the development of C++ classes, which may be used for development of software for location aware management and control, specifically in merchant shipping, so as to provide improved safety, increased automation, prevention of pollution and reducing the work burden of the crew. The GPS is used in conjunction with the regionally accessible nested global shorelines (RANGS) dataset for this purpose. The design of two main C++ classes named CShorelines and CGPSInput have been discussed. A control system mandatory on all oil-tankers above 150 GRT (and few other vessels) called ODMCS has been made location aware using the novel software developed and the results obtained have been critically examined and presented.

An aircraft tractor plays a significant role as a kind of important marine transport and support equipment. It’s necessary to study its controlling and manoeuvring stability to improve operation efficiency. A virtual prototyping model of the tractor-aircraft system based on Lagrange’s equation of the first kind with Lagrange mutipliers was established in this paper. According to the towing characteristics, a path-tracking controller using fuzzy logic theory was designed. Direction control herein was carried out through a compensatory tracking approach. Interactive co-simulation was performed to validate the path-tracking behavior in closed-loop. Simulation results indicated that the tractor followed the reference courses precisely on a flat ground.