CFD Simulation of Bow and Stern Slamming on a Container Ship in Random Waves

Slamming is a common phenomenon as a ship navigates in rough seas, and it can cause severe structural damage to the hull structure. Full-domain computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation of random wave and structure interaction is considered impractical by many researchers. Simplified approaches are usually adopted to alleviate expensive CFD random wave simulation. In this paper, we present a rigorous methodology that solves the Navier Stokes equations entirely without any need for matching. In our simulation scenario, a container ship cruising at a constant speed is allowed to heave and pitch in random waves. Both head-sea bow slamming at a speed of 6 knots and following-sea stern slamming at 0 and 5 knots are studied. Irregular waves are used to simulate a realistic seaway environment. A very effective procedure is developed to capture the desired waves at a specific part of the sailing vessel. A level-set function is employed to capture the violent free surface and to simulate the interaction of the random wave and the ship. This rigorous Navier Stokes numerical approach is able to capture complex mechanisms and show results that are possible only with CFD simulations, thus providing useful information for ship designs.