Recent developments on the hydrodynamics of floating liquid natural gas (FLNG)

FLNG (Floating Liquid Natural Gas) is a new type of floating LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) platform that consists of a ship-type FPSO hull equipped with LNG storage tanks and liquefaction plants. This new platform type has been developed as an alternative to long pipelines running to an onshore LNG liquefaction plant from stranded offshore fields (i.e., Kim Jang et al., 2008, Graczyk and Torgeir, 2009 and Mravak et al., 2009). This study provides a comprehensive review of recent research developments on the hydrodynamics of FLNG. Research results based on numerical calculations and model tests are summarized, existing problems are discussed, and further research topics regarding FLNG are suggested.