SPH Simulation of Freak Wave Impact on a Floating Platform

Floating structures have distinct advantages in adapting to the sea environment of different water depths and are widely used in ocean engineering. One of these structures is the floating oil/gas platform, often used for oil/gas exploitation offshore or in deep sea. As a disastrous wave, freak waves are projected to happen more frequently and more intensively with global climate change, posing a threat to the safe operation of ocean floating structures. In this context, this study examines the freak wave impacts on a tension-leg moored floating platform numerically by using the open smoothed particle hydrodynamics source code DualSPHysics. First, the case of regular wave interaction with a moored rectangle floating body is studied to test the enhanced performance of the recently proposed modified dynamic boundary condition in modeling the solid boundaries of the floating structure and hence the overall simulation accuracy. Then, the freak wave impact case is studied. The wave kinematics (i.e., wave profiles and wave run-up) and dynamics (i.e., wave impact pressures), as well as the structural responses (i.e., platform motions and tension forces of mooring cables), are investigated by invoking experimental data.