Numerical and experimental study on seakeeping performance of ship in finite water depth

Vessels operating in shallow waters require careful observation of the finite-depth effect. In present study, a Rankine source method that includes the shallow water effect and double body steady flow effect is developed in frequency domain. In order to verify present numerical methods, two experiments were carried out respectively to measure the wave loads and free motions for ship advancing with forward speed in head regular waves. Numerical results are systematically compared with experiments and other solutions using the double body basis flow approach, the Neumann-Kelvin approach with simplified m-terms, and linearized free surface boundary conditions with double-body m-terms. Furthermore, the influence of water depths on added mass and damping coefficients, wave excitation forces, motions and unsteady wave patterns are deeply investigated. It is found that finite-depth effect is important and unsteady wave pattern in shallow water is dependent on both of the Brard number τ and depth Froude number Fh.