Hydroelastic Analysis of Floating and Submerged Flexible Structures

Abstract

The present work mainly deals with a class of physical problems in the broad area of wave structure interaction related to hydroelasticity. In the present study, the major emphasis is given • to analyse the hydroelastic behaviour of the very large floating structure based on the Timoshenko-Mindlin’s plate theory in both finite and shallow water depth, • to illustrate the significance of periodic array of articulation, change in bottom topography and wave attenuation due to the presence of vertical barriers in the hydroelastic analysis of floating structures which are of recent scientific interest in the field of Ocean and Coastal Engineering. In the present study, the generalized expansion formulae along with the orthogonal modecoupling relation is utilized to analyse the wave interaction with very large floating structure. The study is performed to analyse the influence of different edge support conditions on the hydroelastic behaviour of the floating elastic plate and the numerical results obtained based Timoshenko-Mindlin plate theory is compared with the EulerBernoulli plate theory. The gravity wave scattering by single and multiple articulated floating finite elastic plates are analyzed based on small amplitude linearized water wave theory. In the case of periodic array of multiple articulated floating elastic plates, the solution for the boundary value problem is analyzed by using both eigenfunction expansion method and wide-spacing approximation method. The transformation of gravity wave due to multiple variations in bottom topography in the presence of articulated floating elastic plate is studied by using orthogonal mode-coupling relation. Further, using shallow water approximation, the flexural gravity wave scattering due to (i) articulated floating elastic plates and (ii) abrupt changes in bottom topography are analyzed and the explicit relation for the wave scattering coefficients are obtained. Finally, surface gravity wave scattering due to the presence of vertical barriers along with the floating articulated elastic plate are analysed and the energy relation associated with transformations of gravity waves in the presence of vertical porous barrier is discussed. The numerical results for the reflection and transmission coefficients, plate deflection, strain along the floating elastic plate, bending moment and shear force are computed in different cases and analyzed.