Influence of restricted water on the time domain interaction forces and moment on a berthed ship due to a passing ship

An investigation was conducted into the effect that different berthed ship bow and stern blockage arrangements has on the interaction forces and moment experienced by a berthed ship due to a passing ship. Physical scale model experiments were used to quantify the magnitude and form of the interaction forces and moments for five different blockage arrangements. The interaction force and moment traces from the experiments were compared to traces predicted using existing empirical formulae based on open water scenarios. Additionally, two methods were used to adjust idealised curves using the experimental results to better represent the form and magnitude of the interaction forces and moments. To demonstrate the effect that the changes in form and magnitude of the interaction forces and moments has on the predicted berthed ship motions the interaction forces and moment from the physical scale model experiments, empirical predictions and the adjusted idealised curves were extrapolated to represent a full scale ship and used as input to a commercially available time domain numerical simulation code to predict the berthed ship motions. The bow and stern blockage was shown to have a significant effect on both the form and magnitude of the interaction forces and moments, and hence, the predicted berthed ship motions. The empirically predicted interaction forces and moments correlated poorly with the experimental results.