Experimental study on the effect of sloshing on side-by-side moored FSRU and LNGC

Abstract

The motions and drift forces of side-by-side (SbS) moored FSRU and LNGC including sloshing effect are studied by experiments. FSRU and LNGC have LNG cargo tanks and sloshing of LNG can affect the motions and drift forces of structures due to the coupling between sloshing and floating body motion. The effect of coupling can vary by filling level of LNG and the effect of filling level is investigated. The coupling effect is most strong at low filling level in beam sea. The effect of gap flow and sloshing is also investigated in the present study as well. The horizontal motions and drift forces are analyzed and it is confirmed that the gap flow is affected by the sloshing. The sway motion, sway drift force and gap flow are influenced by the sloshing in head sea although the sloshing is weak. Copyright ？ 2011 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE).