Nonlinear analysis of sloshing and floating body coupled motion in the time-domain

Abstract The aim of this paper is to develop a coupled nonlinear time-domain simulation scheme for nonlinear interactions among sloshing flows and floating body motion for both regular and irregular wave excitation. The contributions of a variety of nonlinear factors, outside waves and inside sloshing induced forces, as well as their influences on body coupled sway and roll motion were investigated. The induced forces are due to the changes in the transient wet surface of the floating body and full nonlinear sloshing. The effects of tank fill ratio and excitation wave height on the nonlinear coupled motion, as well as the relationship between sloshing and floating body nonlinear coupled motion under large wave amplitudes and severe sea conditions were also investigated and the results are presented. Finally, the numerical solutions are compared with existing experimental result. The fully nonlinear sloshing and floating body coupled motion are simulated based on the potential flow theory, with the transient position hydrodynamic assumption. The boundary value problem is solved by the B-spline higher-order panel method. The ISITIMFB (iterative semi-implicit time integration method for floating bodies) is applied to solve for the body's velocity and displacements. The sloshing energy dissipation is modeled by changing the boundary condition on the tank's solid boundaries. An extended principle to determine the energy dissipation coefficient for both regular and irregular cases is extracted. Then, the sloshing and floating body nonlinear coupled motion under large wave amplitudes and severe sea conditions are investigated, and the numerical solutions are compared with existing experimental results. The effects of tank fill ratio and excitation wave height on the nonlinear coupled motion is also investigated.