In this paper, some aspects of water impact and green water loading are considered by numerically investigating a dambreak problem and water entry problems. The numerical method is based on the Navier-Stokes equations that describe the flow of an incompressible viscous fluid. The equations are discretised on a fixed Cartesian grid using the finite volume method. Even though very small cut cells can appear when moving an object through the fixed grid, the method is stable. The free surface is displaced using the Volume-of-Fluid method together with a local height function, resulting in a strictly mass conserving method. The choice of boundary conditions at the free surface appears to be crucial for the accuracy and robustness of the method. For validation, results of a dambreak simulation are shown that can be compared with measurements. A box has been placed in the flow, as a model for a container on the deck of an offshore floater on which forces are calculated. The water entry problem has been investigated by dropping wedges with different dead-rise angles, a cylinder and a cone into calm water with a prescribed velocity. The resulting free surface dynamics, with the sideways jets, has been compared with photographs of experiments. Also a comparison of slamming coefficients with theory and experimental results has been made. Finally, a drop test with a free falling wedge has been simulated.

Use of CFD tools for industrial offshore applications is a common practice nowadays. So is the need for validation of such tools against experimental results. This paper presents one of the CFD tools, ComFLOW, which solves Navier-Stokes equations and employs an improved Volume of Fluid (iVOF) method to find temporary location of fluid’s free surface. The code is used to simulate flow around a semi-submersible offshore platform due to an incoming regular wave. In particular, wave run-up on the semi’s columns and under-deck fluid impact phenomena are investigated on high-accuracy computational grids with number of cells being in range of 10 millions. Results of numerical simulations are compared with experimental data and focus is on local fluid flow details in immediate vicinity of the platform. Wave run-up on the platform’s columns and fluid pressures at various locations, including under-deck impact, are reported and verified against the experiment for a range of incoming wave heights.

Results of computer simulation of wave and green water loading on floating offshore structures are presented. The simulation program used is a CFD code which solves the Navier-Stokes equations that describe flow of incompressible viscous fluids. The Navier-Stokes equations are discretised using a Finite Volume method on a Cartesian grid with staggered variables. The free surface is displaced using a Volume Of Fluid based algorithm combined with a local height function. In this paper results of validation and sensitivity tests of simulation of green water on the foredeck of an FPSO are presented. Here, the waves are modeled as a dam of water around the deck which is suddenly released. Furthermore, wave loading from impact of regular waves on a SPAR platform is computed and compared with experimental results. The program is found to be robust and the computational results show good agreement with the experiments.