Experimental and numerical assessment of vertical accelerations during bow re-entry of a RIB in irregular waves

This paper presents the comparison of a self-conducted towing tank experiment with the simulation results of a calibrated state-of-the-art strip-theory method and a first-principles numerical method. The experiment concerns a Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) in moderate-to-high irregular waves. These waves result in bow emersion events of the RIB. Bow re-entry induces vertical accelerations which, in reality, can lead to severe injuries and structural damage. State-of-the-art methods for predicting the vertical acceleration levels are based on assumptions, require calibration and are often limited in application range. We demonstrate how the vertical acceleration as a function of time is found from a 3D numerical method based on the Navier–Stokes equations, employing the Volume of Fluid (VoF) method for the free surface, without any further assumptions or limitations. 2D+t strip theory methods like Fastship are based on the mechanics of wedges falling in water. The 3D numerical method that is part of the software ComFLOW is compared to previous research on falling wedges in 2D to investigate the effect of air and to find suitable grid distances for the 3D simulation of the RIB. The 3D RIB simulations are compared to Fastship and the experiment. With respect to the experiment, the ComFLOW simulations show a slight underestimation of the levels of heave and pitch. The underestimation of Fastship is larger. The prediction of acceleration in ComFLOW is hardly different from the experiment and a significant improvement with respect to Fastship. ComFLOW is demonstrated to predict acceleration levels better than before, which creates opportunities for using it in seakeeping optimization and for the improvement of methods like Fastship. The properties of the RIB and the experiment are available as open data at Wellens (2020).