QALE‐FEM for numerical modelling of non‐linear interaction between 3D moored floating bodies and steep waves

This paper presents further development of the quasi arbitrary Lagrangian–Eulerian finite element method (QALE‐FEM) based on a fully non‐linear potential theory to numerically simulate non‐linear responses of 3D moored floating bodies to steep waves. In the QALE‐FEM (recently developed by the authors and applied to 2D floating bodies), the complex unstructured mesh is generated only once at the beginning of calculation and is moved to conform to the motion of boundaries at other time steps by using a robust spring analogy method specially suggested for these kind of problems, avoiding the necessity of high‐cost remeshing. In order to tackle challenges associated with 3D floating bodies, several new numerical techniques are developed in this paper. These include the technique for moving the mesh near body surfaces, the scheme for calculating velocity on 3D body surfaces and the modified semi‐implicit time integration method for floating bodies procedure (ISITIMFB‐M) that is more efficient for dealing with the full coupling between waves and bodies. Using the newly developed techniques and methods, various cases for 3D floating bodies with motions of up to six degrees of freedom (DoFs) are simulated. These include a SPAR platform, a barge‐type floating body and one or two Wigley Hulls in head seas or in oblique waves. For some selected cases, the numerical results are compared with experimental data available in the public domain and satisfactory agreements are achieved. Many results presented in this paper have not been found elsewhere to the best knowledge of the authors. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.