Model Experiments of Floating Side-by-Side Barges

The interaction between two floating vessels has been a subject of much study in recent years due to its relevance to floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) developments. The safety and operability of these facilities are directly influenced by the wave elevation in the gap between the two vessels as well as the relative motions between the vessels. In the industry, it is common practice to use potential flow models to calculate free-surface responses under various wave conditions. Given that these numerical models are inviscid, calibration of additional damping terms are usually carried out using model tests to in order to account for the viscous dissipation on the gap hydrodynamics. However, it is known that the dissipative effects of viscosity may be nonlinear and thus, model test data obtained using one set of wave conditions may not be suitable for use in another scenario. In this paper, model experiments of two identical side-by-side barges of 280m (length) × 46m (breadth) × 16.5m (draught) under various wave excitation are described. The experiments considered a range of parameters such as gap width, wave heights, periods and wave directions. The results obtained for each set of these parameters are discussed and compared between the two types of incident waves (regular and irregular).