Global performance analysis of floating harbor and container ship for loading and offloading operation

The feasibility and general performance of a floating harbor system is studied with regard to the relative motion of a floating quay and a container ship. A 350[m]? 160[m] box-type barge is selected as the floating harbor and it is positioned by a dolphin mooring system. The container ship is tied to the land wall by hawsers. The hydrodynamic interactions between floating bodies and a fixed quay wall in close proximity with a side-by-side arrangement are investigated. A three dimensional wave-body diffraction/radiation panel program WAMIT is used for the calculation of hydrodynamic information and response amplitude operators (RAO) of the three bodies in frequency domain. Subsequently, the vessel-mooring coupled dynamic analysis program WINPOST is employed to produce motion time histories in time domain. The frequency-domain RAO is successfully compared with time-domain RAO in case viscous forces are neglected. Compared to Brajesh Kumar?s (2005) study, 12?12 full hydrodynamic interactions between the two floating bodies are included and dynamic wind loading is considered in addition to wave and current loadings. All the relative motion statistics are calculated from the respective motion time histories for a typical operational condition and a typical survival condition. The relative motion between the interacting bodies is small in the operational condition to ensure the efficacy of container loading and offloading operation from both sides of the ship while the loading and offloading operation is not available in the survival condition.