An experimental study on the 2-DoF motion of side-by-side connected 2D rectangular cylinders with sloshing effect

Abstract

The sloshing effect on the 2D motion of two rectangular cylinders is investigated experimentally. First, experiments for the sway and roll motions of one floater are carried out in a 2D wave flume. Sway and roll motions are allowed, while the heave motion is restricted by the heavy cartridge. The soft spring system is installed besides models in order to prevent the drift-off of models. Then model tests for two floaters of the same configuration are performed. Two floaters are connected by a rigid bar with a gap of a quarter of the model's width. Each floater contains water of a specific filling in order to represent sloshing flow. The correlation between the sway and the roll under the influence of internal flow, the motion characteristics of side-by-side connected rectangular floaters, and the viscous damping effect are analyzed systematically. Copyright ？ 2013 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE).