Numerical Convergence on the Hydroelasticity of a Large Containership

Nowadays, more and more 20,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) class ultra large container ships (ULCS) have been built in service across the worldwide. It is paramount that hydroelastic specialists become paying close attention to structural responses and loads predictions due to up to a 400m length of the ships. First of all, mesh convergence by finite element analysis is necessary to determine in the numerical calculation. In this paper, based on the three-dimension linear frequency domain hydroelasticity theory, the hydrodynamic meshes convergence is discussed when modelling the hull surface of the ULCS. Ascribe to the Sunway TaihuLight, rank 3 in the current TOP500 supercomputer list, the Message Passing Interface and the multi-level parallel programming model are used aimed to the wetted panels, the wave frequencies and so on. Several sets of different global grid density and grid distribution along the ship’s length for the containership are calculated to compare the hydrodynamic coefficients such as added mass, damping, wave exciting force, ship motions and exterior loads with several typical service speeds in the head regular wave. It has been concluded that sensitivity of numerical modelling converges to a stable state with increasing the panel numbers per ship. Therefore, one set of grid division optimised, and superposed elastic modes numbers are recommended in the hydroelastic analysis of numerical hydroelastic prediction of springing and whipping.