Numerical investigations into the influence of geometric configurations on hydrodynamic characteristics of torpedo anchors

Torpedo anchors are an innovative and cost-effective technology in marine foundation engineering; however, there is a lack of systematic and comprehensive studies on the influence of torpedo anchor geometry on its hydrodynamic characteristics, especially the effect of anchor fin configuration on the hydrodynamic characteristics is rarely reported in the existing literature. Therefore, this study investigates the influence of geometric characteristics of both finless and finned torpedo anchors on their terminal velocity, drag coefficient and installation directional stability in water through CFD numerical analysis in a systematical manner. The considered geometric characteristics include the center of gravity position, shape and angle of anchor tip, shaft and fin aspect ratio, fin number, fin thickness, fin shape, fin position and fin area. Based on the obtained numerical results, some practical design recommendations and impact weighting charts of different anchor geometric factors are provided, which enables a quick qualitative and quantitative assessment of torpedo anchors. In addition, a simple weight-based approach for estimation of terminal velocity and drag coefficient of torpedo anchors considering multiple geometric configuration factors is proposed, which may provide some reference and scientific guidance for experimental and engineering design of torpedo anchors.     

Dynamic response of a SWATH vessel for installing pre-assembled floating wind turbines

New and efficient installation concepts which can reduce the cost of developing an offshore wind farm are of particular interest. This paper explores a promising concept using the small water-plane area twin-hull vessel (SWATH) to install pre-assembled wind turbines (OWT) onto floating spar foundations. A focus is placed on the hydrodynamic performance of the SWATH and the response analysis of the coupled SWATH-spar system. Firstly, the numerically calculated difference-frequency wave force effect and damping forces of the original SWATH were verified with experimental data. Secondly, the original SWATH was modified to satisfy the criteria of weight-carrying capacity and hydrostatic stability. Thirdly, a multibody numerical model for the SWATH-spar system was developed, in which the hydrodynamic and mechanical couplings between the SWATH and a spar were considered. The SWATH is equipped with a dynamic positioning system to counteract the slow-drift wave force effects. The nonlinear time-domain simulations were carried out for the mating stage when a wind turbine is lifted above the spar foundation. Based on the analysis of statistics of the relative displacement and velocity of the tower bottom and the spar top, the installation concept with SWATH is found to be of decent performance. Finally, recommendations are provided for future research on this concept, which contributes to developing next-generation installation concepts for bottom-fixed and floating wind farms.     

Effects of roughness on hydrodynamic characteristics of a submerged floating tunnel subject to steady currents

The effects of surface roughness as induced by marine fouling on the hydrodynamic forces on a submerged floating tunnel (SFT) are experimentally and numerically investigated in detail at Reynolds numbers Re = 8.125 × 10³–5.25 × 10⁴. A sensitivity analysis to different roughness parameters including roughness height, skewness, coverage ratio, and spatial arrangement is performed. In addition, an optimized parametric cross-section for an SFT is proposed, and the hydrodynamic performance of the parametric shape and circular SFT cross-section shape with roughness elements is compared. The pressure distribution along the SFT, flow separation and wake characteristics are analyzed to provide a systematic insight into the fundamental mechanism relating the roughness parameters and flow around an SFT. In order to better understand the nonlinear relationships among structural geometry, roughness parameters, flow states, and structural response, an artificial intelligence method using Random Forest (RF) for feature importance ranking is applied. The results show that with the parametric shape, the hydrodynamic forces on the fouled SFT can be effectively mitigated. The roughness height and coverage ratio affect the equivalent blockage and hence, change flow separation and recirculation length in the wake. Lower skewness of the roughness elements can increase the critical Re by changing the relative roughness parameter. Horizontal arrangement of the roughness elements on an SFT generally results in the largest hydrodynamic forces, compared to staggered and vertical distributions. Throughout the feature importance ranking, the flow regime is found to be the most important feature of the hydrodynamics of the SFT. In addition, the SFT cross-section shape and roughness coverage ratio play a dominant role.     

An improved method for estimating internal solitary waves force on small circular cylindrical structures

Theoretically calculation and laboratory experiments were performed to investigate the horizontal force exerted by internal solitary wave (ISW) on small circular cylindrical structures. Improvement in calculation of drag force and inertia force by introducing two-drag-coefficient method and spatial derivative of velocity into the calculation of force by eigenfunction was made based on systematically study on theoretical foundations. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) method and high precision force sensor were used to measure the velocity and force exerted by ISW, respectively. ISW waveform was traced by analyzing image frames follow grayscale threshold method. For the first time, components of horizontal force were calculated from PIV data, which show good agreement with theoretical one. Moreover, series comparisons between experimental data and calculational results were carried out to examine the proposed method. The results show ideal accuracy of the method and significant improvement comparing to the traditional method.