Global hydroelastic model for springing and whipping based on a free-surface CFD code (OpenFOAM)

Abstract

The theoretical background and a numerical solution procedure for a time domain hydroelastic code are presented in this paper. The code combines a VOF-based free surface flow solver with a flexible body motion solver where the body linear elastic deformation is described by a modal superposition of dry mode shapes expressed in a local floating frame of reference. These mode shapes can be obtained from any finite element code. The floating frame undergoes a pseudo rigid-body motion which allows for a large rigid body translation and rotation and fully preserves the coupling with the local structural deformation. The formulation relies on the ability of the flow solver to provide the total fluid action on the body including e.g. the viscous forces, hydrostatic and hydrodynamic forces, slamming forces and the fluid damping. A numerical simulation of a flexible barge is provided and compared to experiments to show that the VOF-based flow solver has this ability and the code has the potential to predict the global hydroelastic responses accurately.