Special Motion Characteristic of Wind Turbine Installation Vessel in Waves

Wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV) is a kind of special ship that has large upper deck and shallow draft, which is specifically designed for the installation of offshore wind turbines. However, accurately predicting the motion of WTIV is still a challenge. In this paper, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is adopted to investigate the motion of WTIV under different wave conditions in a three-dimensional numerical wave tank using commercial software Star-CCM+. Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations and kappa - epsilon turbulent models are used for modeling the turbulent flow, and volume of fluid (VOF) method is applied to track the location and shape of transit-free surface. The overset grid technique is taken to handle the fluid-structure interaction (FSI) problem with large motion amplitude. The simulation results have been validated by comparing with the experimental data, and show potential to provide theoretical guidance and technical support for the motion of WTIV in waves.