Increase of Wave Drift Forces in Severe Seastates Due to Wave Frequency Viscous Damping

Calculation of wave drift forces in the context of mooring analysis is usually performed by potential flow boundary element methods. For monohulls with large waterplane area, such as floating, production, storage and offloading vessels (FPSOs), the assumption is that heave and pitch damping is dominated by inviscid radiation of waves. The present study investigates the effects of heave and pitch wave frequency viscous damping on the horizontal wave drift forces of a FPSO. Experimental evidence indicates the presence of non-negligible viscous damping in case of moderate and severe seastates. Such observation is confirmed by computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations of forced harmonic motions with different periods and amplitudes. On a second step, a numerical analysis shows that the surge wave drift forces increase significantly at the low frequency range when realistic heave and pitch viscous damping is considered. The frequency range where standard potential flow calculations appear to underestimate wave drift forces coincides with the range where design seastates have most of the energy. Finally, the wave drift coefficients calculated with realistic additional viscous damping are compared with empirical coefficients identified from model test data. The identification procedure follows a second order signal analysis technique known as cross bi spectral analysis.