Numerical simulation of towed low-tension cable with nonuniform characteristics

Low-tension cables have been increasingly used in recent years due to deep-sea developments and the advent of synthetic cables. In the case of low-tension cables, large displacements may happen due to relatively small restoring forces of tension and thus the effects of fluid and geometric non-linearities become predominant. In this study, three-dimensional (3-D) dynamic behavior of a towed low-tension cable with non-uniform characteristics is numerically analyzed by considering fluid and geometric non-linearities and bending stiffness. A Fortran program is developed by employing a finite difference method. In the algorithm, an implicit time integration and Newton-Raphson iteration are adopted. For the calculation of huge size of matrices, block tri-diagonal matrix method is applied, which is much faster than the well-known Gauss-Jordan method in two point boundary value problems. Some case studies are carried out and the results of numerical simulations are compared with a in-house program of WHOI Cable with good agreements.