Higher Order Spectral Analysis of Non-linear Pitching Motion

The estimation of non-linear ship motion is one of the most important issues in recent studies of ship stability. In this paper, bispectral analysis and bicoherence analysis were introduced in order to analyze the non-linear ship motion. In addition to the previously observed non-linear pitching motion in following seas, this study observed the non-linear phase coupling of pitching motion in following & quartering seas, and starboard beam seas. By comparing phase coupling between each frequency quantitatively via the bicoherence analysis, it was confirmed that non-linear phase coupling was much stronger in frequency regions other than the peak frequencies of a power spectrum. Furthermore, it was found out that the results of bicoherence calculation were analagous to each other, although the different normalization methods were applied.