Time-domain analysis of nonlinear motion responses and structural loads on ships and offshore structures: development of WISH programs

ABSTRACTThe present paper introduced a computer program, called WISH, which is based on a time-domain Rankine panel method. The WISH has been developed for practical use to predict the linear and nonlinear ship motion and structural loads in waves. The WISH adopts three different levels of seakeeping analysis: linear, weakly-nonlinear and weak-scatterer approaches. Later, WISH-FLEX has been developed to consider hydroelasticity effects on hull-girder structure. This program can solve the springing and whipping problems by coupling between the hydrodynamic and structural problems. More recently this development has been continued to more diverse problems, including the motion responses of multiple adjacent bodies, the effects of seakeeping in ship maneuvering, and the floating-body motion in finite-depth domain with varying bathymetry. This paper introduces a brief theoretical and numerical background of the WISH package, and some validation results. Also several applications to real ships and offshore structures are shown.