Abstract
Recently, very large floating structures (VLFS) are proposed for use as an airport, disaster prevention bases and offshore wind power generation system, and so on. There are a lot of researches on hydrodynamic response of the VLFS in waves. However, it is necessary to research the influence of the discontinuity of the stiffness when the floating units of different types are connected with each other or the joints of floating units have a special shape. In this research, we conducted the hydraulic model experiment on 1/50 scale, and analyzed the elastic response of the test model using VODAC (Very Large Floating Structure Oriented Dynamic Analysis Code). The depth to length ratio of the model is relatively large, and its joint part is composed of multiple materials. VODAC developed by University of Tokyo calculates the hydroelastic response of a large floating structure fully considering the hydrodynamic interaction effects. Two kinds of beam FE-models are employed as a structural model; one is the model that arranges equivalent beam elements on the neural plane, and the other the model that represents the deck, bottom and vertical wall using beam element individually. We discussed suitable structural modeling technique by comparison of an experiment and analysis.
