Assessment of nonlinear heave damping model for spar with heave plate using free decay tests

Linear damping models have been used in the past for solving floating body dynamics, especially for simple geometries such as spar. However, due to the addition of heave damping elements to spar such as heave plate, complex flow around these elements may change the relationship between damping and velocity of the body to nonlinear. The damping plays a major role in accurate determination of motion response of spars, especially the heave. Free decay tests have been carried out for spar with and without heave plate in calm water condition. The Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of heave decay is carried out using ANSYS FLUENT and validated by free decay test results using scale models. Mesh convergence study has been conducted to determine the optimum mesh size. The heave motion obtained from CFD are used to derive the damping terms by matching the heave motion obtained using equation of motion by changing the damping term with linear, quadratic and the combination of linear and quadratic. The heave motion obtained from linear damping model matches well with that obtained from measured motion and CFD simulation for spar without heave plate. However, the linear / quadratic damping models alone are not suitable for spar with heave plate. Hence a combination of linear and quadratic damping model is proposed for spar with heave plate. The heave motion computed using a combination of linear and quadratic damping model matches well with that obtained from experimental studies and CFD simulations thus indicating the complexity of flow around heave plate in comparison to the spar alone. Further, the vortices around the spar models obtained from CFD simulations are also presented and discussed with regard to the higher order damping.