Simulation of Mooring Cable Dynamics Using a Discontinuous Galerkin Method

A new numerical model for simulating the dynamics of mooring cables is presented. The model uses the hp formulation of the discontinuous Galerkin method. Verification against analytical solutions for a static and a dynamic case is carried out and the model is shown to exhibit exponential convergence with increasing polynomial order of the expansion basis. A simulation of the cyclic movement of a cable endpoint is compared to experimental results, and there is a good agreement between the computed and measured tension force.