Hydroelastic behaviour of pneumaticall oating structures in regular waves

Abstract

Hydroelastic response of floating structures is of interest as they have various fields

of applica ion including waterfront infrastructure, off-shore wind farms, LNG terminals, etc. This paper presents a numerical approach to examine the hydroelastic responses of the pneumatically supported floating structures for potential applications in floating jetties for LNG terminals. For the hydroelastic analysis, the fluid is modeled as a 2D semi-infinite strip of seawater whereas the floating structure is modeled as a beam. A direct coupled model is then constructed by using the boundary integral formulation for the fluid and FEM for the structure and by incorporating a pneumatic factor at the fluid-structure interface to consider the compressibility of air. For case studies of the pneumatic support effect, hydroelastic responses of the pneumatically supported type are compared to those of the pontoon type. It is shown that, in general, the pneumatic supports contribute to the reduction of the hydroelastic responses and the response reduction can be enhanced when some pneumatic support

conditions are met.