An Investigation Into the Limitations of the Panel Method and the Gap Effect for a Fixed and a Floating Structure Subject to Waves

The wave-induced motions of vessels moored next to a fixed object and open to the sea impact the operability of many offshore operations, and should be assessed in order to avoid accidents and catastrophes. When analysing vessels moored by a fixed object (e.g. quay-side or platform), time domain simulations have shown numeric instabilities resulting in unreliable outcomes. The origin of the numerical instability might lie in the hydrodynamic added mass and wave radiation damping. This is typically calculated using potential flow methods and influenced by the existence of standing waves in the gap between the two bodies. For certain frequencies, these give negative values, potentially causing instabilities in non-linear (coupled) time domain simulations. In these cases, the vessel can behave unexpectedly, generating energy rather than dissipating it. As such, certain simulations have been disregarded as they are unlikely to accurately represent real-life scenarios. This paper investigates and compares added mass and damping using two different tools and studies the gap effect when conducting diffraction analysis using 3D panel methods. The work covers a literature study into potential theory, multibody analysis, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and lid techniques. This is followed by a study conducted using both panel method and CFD analyses. The results from both approaches have been compared, showing interesting information and the necessity of researching more into the problem addressed in this paper.