Prediction of wave-in-deck loads on offshore structures using CFD

The reduction in design air gap has been considered as a threat in the amplification of wave-in-deck loads on both fixed and floating offshore platforms. In this paper, the wave-in-deck forces on a fixed plate of a rigidly mounted box-shaped structure due to monochromatic regular waves are computed by means of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach based on the volume of fluid (VOF) method implemented in the commercial CFD codes. Different parameters including wave steepness and air gap are tested. The obtained results are validated against tank experiments. The measured peaks of force components were analysed using one-way ANOVA (analysis of variance) in order to test the force variation over time. CFD force predictions were found to be in good agreement with the measured forces.