Resistance of large caisson in floating transport considering the influence of air

This paper deals with the floating resistance of super large caisson by numerical simulation, and the influence of air resistance on the caisson, which is often ignored by previous researchers, is considered. The floating caisson of Taizhou Highway Bridge’s middle tower pier is investigated, and the software package FLUENT is used to simulate the floating process of large-scale rounded rectangular steel caisson. This simulation adopts the volume of fluid (VOF) model with water-air two-phase flow, which can take both the hydraulic resistance and air resistance into account. Subsequently, the analyses on hydraulic resistance and air resistance under different working conditions, such as different flow velocities and different draughts of water are performed, and the results are compared with those calculated by related empirical formula. The comparison shows that the air resistance takes up notable portion in the total resistance on the floating caisson, and the effect of air resistance on the safety of caisson should be paid sufficient attention to rather than be ignored.