Full-scale unsteady RANS simulations of vertical ship motions in shallow water

The seakeeping behaviour of a vessel in shallow water differs significantly from its behaviour in deep water. In shallow water, a vessel’s motion responses to incident waves will be affected by hydrodynamic effects caused by the presence of a finite depth. Given that a vessel will sail in shallow water at various times during its service life, such as when entering harbours, it is important to have an understanding of the influence of shallow water on ship motions. In this study, using a commercial unsteady Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes solver, a numerical study of ship motions in shallow water was carried out. Firstly, the characteristics of shallow water waves were investigated by conducting a series of simulations. Then, a full-scale large tanker model was used as a case study to predict its heave and pitch responses to head waves at various water depths, covering a range of wave frequencies at zero speed. The motion results obtained were validated against related experimental studies available in the literature, and were also compared to those from 3-D potential theory. The results were found to be in good agreement with the experimental data. Finally, it was shown that vertical motions were significantly affected by shallow water.