Experimental and numerical investigations on dynamic response performance of a cable laying vessel in complex operating conditions

Abstract

An innovative cable laying vessel for the grid connecting project of Zhoushan Island was designed and has been constructed. The stability of the vessel under the complex sea conditions is extremely important to the cable laying operations. Experimental and numerical studies are carried out in this study to investigate the stability performance of the mooring system designed for maintaining the position of the vessel. The experiments were conducted in a wave tank under the scale ratio of 1:49, and the motions in 6 degrees of freedom of the vessel model were measured together with the tension forces of the mooring lines, which can be utilized for the numerical model validation. More environmental hydrodynamic conditions were employed for further study numerically to justify the stability of the vessel under the complex operating conditions.