Hydroelastic Response Analysis of Mat-Like VLFS over A Plane Slope in Head Seas

Very large floating structures (VLFS) have an extremely large size of several kilometers in length, thus, the environment at one end of the platform may be different from that at the other end. The importance of such an inhomogeneous environment to the hydroelastic response of a VLFS is of obvious concern for practical application. Some studies have been carried out to investigate the effects of shoreline proximity, breakwaters and harbor walls. In this paper, the impact of the variable depth on the hydroelastic responses of a VLFS is investigated. For simplicity, an ascending plane slope is taken to simulate the varying bottom although the method is capable of treating a bottom of arbitrary variation. The long wave theory and the thin plate theory are employed to model the wave field and the mat-like VLFS respectively. The finite difference method is used to numerically solve the boundary value problem. The results for the zero inclination slope are compared with experimental data and an analytical method to validate the present numerical method. Finally the effect of the inclination of the slope on reflection and transmission coefficients and plate deflections are investigated thoroughly.