Investigation on Wave Reduction Performances of Floating Hinge-Linked Breakwater

Abstract

This paper investigates the wave reduction performances of floating hinge-linked breakwater which are attached to very large floating structures (VLFS). The performance of breakwater is evaluated by analyzing the responses of VLFS under sea wave. Direct method is employed as a numerical tool to calculate responses of VLFS. Higher order boundary element method (HOBEM) is employed for the analysis of fluid flow. Structural stiffness and mass matrices and force vector are obtained by finite element method (FEM). One km-long VLFS is considered in numerical example. VLFS with flexible, stiff, two-hinged and rounded breakwater are analyzed to investigate the effect of stiffness and shape of breakwater.