Reproduction on Dynamic Behavior of a Moored Large Coal Carrier during the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami

Abstract

The 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami at 14:46 JST on March 11, 2011 affected large areas of the eastern and northern part of Japan, and many sea disasters against vessels moored along terminal inside harbor basins occurred. We conducted surveys upon sea disasters of a VLCC at S-Port and an Aframax tanker at O-Port. There was also a severe disaster of large coal carrier at H-Port, which encountered a tsunami of tsunami wave height beyond 10 meters and damaged mooring equipment such as fenders and mooring lines, and unloader of coal, entirely. In this paper, we have also tried to reproduce the ship's behavior and analyze the mooring loads during the tsunami through a numerical simulation of tsunami and ship motion.