A NURBS-based high-order panel method for three-dimensional radiation and diffraction problems with forward speed

A high-order Rankine panel method based on Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline (NURBS) is developed for solving the three-dimensional radiation and diffraction problems with forward speed. A NURBS surface is used to precisely represent the body geometry. Velocity potential on the body surface is described by B-spline after the source density distribution on the boundary surface is determined. A collocation approach is applied to numerical computation and the integral equations are evaluated by applying Gauss–Legendre quadrature. The mj-terms are evaluated by a desingularized method which utilizes NURBS technique. In order to verify the method proposed, it is firstly applied to the unbounded flow problem of a sphere and spheroids. The numerical results are found to be in good agreement with analytical solutions. Then the method is used to solve the radiation and diffraction problems of a sphere and the diffraction problem of a spheroid moving with a forward speed beneath the free surface in frequency domain. The numerical results are satisfactory in comparison with the published analytical results and experimental results.