Scale effects on wave loads and slamming loads in ship hydroelasticity simulation by CFD-FEM method

A partitioned CFD-FEM two-way coupled method is employed to simulate the wave loads and hydroelasticity of a 310-m-long ship at different scales and the scale effects are investigated. Four different scales, including three model scale 1:100, 1:50, 1:25 and one full-scale 1:1, of the ship under equivalent wave conditions are calculated for comparison. The results of the resistance in waves, global motions, wave loads, slamming and green water pressures for ships at different scales are comparatively analyzed from the aspects of time series, frequency spectra and statistics values to investigate the scale effects. The research interest mainly lies in the scale effect on slamming and green water pressures on the flexible ships. The scale effects on ship seakeeping and slamming pressures by pure CFD simulation are also comparatively studied. It can be concluded that the scale effect has little influence on ship vertical motions and loads, while it has more influence on slamming pressure loads and green water on deck, but the deviation caused by other uncertainty factors can be comparable with that of scale effects.