Numerical study of damaged ship flooding in beam seas

An integrated numerical method that couples a seakeeping solver based on the potential flow theory and a Navier–Stokes (NS) solver with the volume of fluid (VOF) model was developed to study the behaviour of a damaged ship in beam seas. The dynamics of water flooding and sloshing in the compartments were calculated by the NS solver, whereas the hydrodynamic forces induced by the sea waves on the external hull surface were calculated using the seakeeping solver. At each time step, the instantaneous ship motion was applied to the excitation of the internal water motion; the corresponding load inside the compartments was added to the resultant external force, which was used to update the ship’s motion. To assess its performance, the integrated method was used to simulate the roll decay of a damaged Ro–Ro ferry and the ferry’s motion in regular beam seas. Validation against experimental data showed that the proposed method can yield satisfactory results with acceptable computational costs.

► An integrated method was developed to study damaged ship flooding in beam seas.
► The sea wave loads on the hull surface were calculated by a seakeeping solver.
► The floodwater dynamics were calculated using a Navier–Stokes solver.
► The interactive dynamics between the ship, sea waves and floodwater were analysed.