Numerical and experimental investigation of floating structures in regular waves

In this paper, an experimental and numerical study of a floating object is presented. The incorporation of both experimental and numerical tools for the investigation of a simple floating object provides the opportunity to validate the proposed numerical model in detail. The experiments are performed in the wave flume of the Leibniz Universit¨at Hannover, Germany. The flume is capable of generating high-fidelity waves with a wide range of parameters. The study consists of a free-floating box which is placed in the middle of the flume. A soft mooring line system is attached to the box in order to prevent motion perpendicular to the incoming wave direction. Heave and pitch motion are measured for different wave heights and periods. Additionally, measurements under consideration of mooring are presented. For this purpose, different rope mooring systems are attached to the box, and the motion of the moored-floating body in different wave conditions is analysed. In a second step, numerical simulations of the same setup are presented. The applied numerical tool is the open-source CFD model REEF3D.