KEYWORD: Large floating structure. Mege-Float, Hydroelasticity
ABSTRACT
A pontoon type large floating structure was highlighted since The Floating Structures Association of Japan proposed a new concept as a floating airport in 1994 .
The structure is supposed to be mat-like structure with length of 4 to 5 kilometers and depth of 5 meters. It has been pointed out that hydroelastic response plays significant role in such flat and flexible structures. The concept was further developed by The Technological Research Association of Mega-Float which was established in 1995. They constructed a 300 meter long prototype structure to carry out at-se a experiment.
The authors carried out tank tests to investigate hydroelastic response of the prototype structure using its scale model. The model was designed under the law of similitude to have elastically similar bending rigidity with 300 meter long prototype structure. The analysis method based on 2-D structure and 2-D fluid modeling has been established in which the structure is approximated as a rectangular plate and the hydrodynamic characteristics is evaluated using the pressure distribution method based on the zero-draft Green function. The equation of motion, in which the interaction between structure and fluid is taken into account, is solved by the direct procedure. The calculated results show quite satisfactory agreement with the experiment and the study has highlighted some remarkable characteristics concerning hydroelastic behavior.