Abstract
The Digital Prototype (DP) [1] procedure gets an approximation of the viscous hydrodynamic forces that apply to full-scale floating offshore structures. It uses a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model validated against experimental tests at a lower scale, to get the best fit of a model based on Cummins’ equation with hydrodynamic coefficients including additional Morison’s coefficients. To extend the validity of this method, multiple experimental tests on different configurations of heave plates have been carried out at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) hydrodynamics laboratory. Unlike other tests conducted on the same subject, these analyse the experimental and numerical results at different scales, extrapolating the results thanks to the DP method up to full scale. The contribution of the paper is the extension of this method to be used in a heave plate geometry, applicable to many different offshore devices, and the study of the advantages of a larger number of Morison coefficients in the equation of motion.