Bogdan Iwanowski

CFD SIMULATION OF WAVE RUN-UP ON A SEMI-SUBMERSIBLE AND COMPARISON WITH EXPERIMENT

Use of CFD tools for industrial offshore applications is a common practice nowadays. So is the need for validation of such tools against experimental results. This paper presents one of the CFD tools, ComFLOW, which solves Navier-Stokes equations and employs an improved Volume of Fluid (iVOF) method to find temporary location of fluid’s free surface. The code is used to simulate flow around a semi-submersible offshore platform due to an incoming regular wave. In particular, wave run-up on the semi’s columns and under-deck fluid impact phenomena are investigated on high-accuracy computational grids with number of cells being in range of 10 millions. Results of numerical simulations are compared with experimental data and focus is on local fluid flow details in immediate vicinity of the platform. Wave run-up on the platform’s columns and fluid pressures at various locations, including under-deck impact, are reported and verified against the experiment for a range of incoming wave heights.Copyright

Extreme Wave Impact on Offshore Platforms and Coastal Constructions

Hydrodynamic wave loading on structures plays an important role in areas such as coastal protection, harbor design and offshore constructions (FPSO’s, mooring), and there is a need for its prediction up to a detailed level (max./min. pressures, duration of pressure peaks, shear stresses, etc.). In close cooperation with industry, long-year joint-industry projects are carried out to develop a numerical simulation method: the CFD method ComFLOW. The two major application areas are the prediction of extreme wave forces on offshore platforms and offloading vessels, and the prediction of impact forces on coastal protection structures. The paper will present a short overview of the method, some recent results and future plans.Copyright

Numerical Simulation of Sloshing in a Tank, CFD Calculations Against Model Tests

Simulation of liquid dynamics in an LNG tank is studied numerically. The applied CFD code solves Navier-Stokes equations and uses an improved Volume of Fluid (iVOF) method to track movement of fluid’s free surface. Relative advantages of using two different fluid models, single-phase (liquid+void) and two-phase (liquid+compressible gas) are discussed, the latter model being capable of simulating bubbles and gas entrapped in liquid. Furthermore, the 1st and 2nd order upwind differencing schemes are used with both physical models leading to a total of four possible approaches to solve the problem. Numerical results are verified against experimental data from large scale (1:10) sloshing experiments of 2D section of an LNG carrier. The CFD vs. experiment comparison is shown for tank filling rates of practical interest, ranging from 10% to 95%, and includes both fluid height and fluid pressure exerted on tank walls. A visual comparison in form of computer animation frames, synchronised with camera-made movies taken during the experiments is included as well. Finally, an exhaustive computational grid convergence study is presented for lower filling rates of the tank.Copyright

Wave-In-Deck Load on a Jacket Platform, CFD-Derived Pressures and Non-Linear Structural Response

The paper presents an industrial application of CFD and non-linear structural response codes in offshore technology. A Wave-In-Deck load due to an extreme wave, acting on a jacket platform, is studied numerically. Particular attention is given to details of local flow and local non-linear dynamical response of the structure. A very detailed FEM model of the platform deck structure, composed of shell elements, is embedded into a non body-conforming CFD grid of computational cells. The applied CFD code is a Navier-Stokes equation solver with an improved Volume of Fluid (iVOF) method employed to displace and re-construct fluid’s free surface and uses a simple, Cartesian grid. The two computational grids, FEM and CFD, are independent. The challenge of a direct mapping of CFD-derived fluid pressures onto structural FEM shell elements is addressed. Then the non-linear dynamical response of the structure is found in time domain. The employed CFD code is ComFLOW while the FEM part is handled by the well-known commercial program LS-DYNA. The composed approach utilizes both robustness of VOF-based methods in tracking of the fluid’s free surface and reliability of FEM structural codes such as LS-DYNA.Copyright

NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF SLOSHING IN A TANK, STATISTICAL DESCRIPTION OF EXPERIMENTS AND CFD CALCULATIONS

Numerical study of liquid dynamics in an LNG tank is presented. The available data from large scale (1:10) sloshing experiments of 2D section of an LNG carrier reveal large scatter in recorded values of peak pressures. The experimental data is analysed from statistical point of view in order to obtain distributions of the pressure peaks. Then the entire experimental data record is reproduced numerically by CFD simulations and it is shown that pressure peaks obtained numerically display scatter of values as well. A statistical description of the numerically obtained record is provided and compared with description derived from the experimental data. The applied CFD code ComFLOW solves Navier-Stokes equations and uses an improved Volume of Fluid (iVOF) method to track movement of fluid’s free surface. Two different fluid models, single-phase (liquid+void) and two-phase (liquid+compressible gas) can be applied, the latter model being capable of simulating bubbles and gas entrapped in liquid. For low tank filling rate discussed in the paper (10%) the single-phase approach is sufficient. Comparison of statistical properties of experimental and numerical records is offered.Copyright

Prediction of Green Water and Wave Loading Using a Navier-Stokes Based Simulation Tool

Results of computer simulation of wave and green water loading on floating offshore structures are presented. The simulation program used is a CFD code which solves the Navier-Stokes equations that describe flow of incompressible viscous fluids. The Navier-Stokes equations are discretised using a Finite Volume method on a Cartesian grid with staggered variables. The free surface is displaced using a Volume Of Fluid based algorithm combined with a local height function. In this paper results of validation and sensitivity tests of simulation of green water on the foredeck of an FPSO are presented. Here, the waves are modeled as a dam of water around the deck which is suddenly released. Furthermore, wave loading from impact of regular waves on a SPAR platform is computed and compared with experimental results. The program is found to be robust and the computational results show good agreement with the experiments.Copyright

Wave-in-Deck Load on a Jacket Platform, CFD Calculations Compared With Experiments

The paper presents an industrial application of CFD for calculation of Wave-In-Deck load due to an extreme wave.Particular attention is given to flow kinematics initialization that is necessary to start up a CFD simulation. The applied CFD code, ComFLOW, is a Navier-Stokes equation solver with an improved Volume of Fluid (iVOF) method employed to displace and re-construct fluids free surface.For incoming waves high enough for a negative air-gap and therefore with Wave-In-Deck loads, a jacket platform was tested in model basin, for both regular and irregular wave cases. One of goals of these model tests was verification of CFD codes. The experimental and computational models of the structure are exactly the same. In the paper, the measured Wave-In-Deck forces are compared with CFD results.Copyright

Identification of Ringing Events for a Slender Tubular Marine Structure

Marine structures can experience loads coming from steep, non-linear waves. A transient response of the structure can be amplified in some circumstances due to phenomenon known as “ringing”. Exact conditions of the ringing response excitation are not well known and various definitions of what constitutes a ringing event appear in bibliography. This article aims at identification of ringing events for a slender marine structure subjected to the second order nonlinear irregular waves. Loads on the structure are calculated from Morison equation with extensions known as Rainey’s slender body theory. Consistent second order formulation for the flow kinematics above mean water level is employed. The excitation load is non-linear due to wave non-linearity, Morison equation’s drag term and non-linear inertia terms which can be found in Rainey’s formulation. The structure’s dynamic response is obtained by Finite Element calculations in time domain. Overall randomly-excited vibrations are analysed by statistical and spectral methods, and application of Continuous Wavelet Transform (CWT) is presented. The simulations show a number of sudden, high amplitude resonant events which can be classified as ringing.Copyright