Investigation of Hydroelastic Ship Responses of An ULOC in Head Seas

Investigation of hydroelastic ship responses has been brought to the attention of the scientific and engineering world for several decades. There are two kinds of high-frequency vibrations in general ship responses to a large ocean-going ship in its shipping line, so-called springing and whipping, which are important for the determination of design wave load and fatigue damage as well. Because of the huge scale of an ultra large ore cartier （ULOC）, it will suffer seldom slamming events in the ocean. The resonance vibration with high frequency is springing, which is caused by continuous wave excitation. In this paper, the wave-induced vibrations of the ULOC are addressed by experimental and numerical methods according to 2D and 3D hydroelasticity theories and an elastic model under full-load and ballast conditions. The influence of loading conditions on high-frequency vibration is studied both by numerical and experimental results. Wave-induced vibrations are higher under ballast condition including the wave frequency part, the multiple frequencies part, the 2-node and the 3-node vertical bending parts of the hydroelastic responses. The predicted results from the 2D method have less accuracy than the 3D method especially under ballast condition because of the slender-body assumption in the former method. The applicability of the 2D method and the further development of nonlinear effects to 3D method in the prediction of hydroelastic responses of the ULOC are discussed.

TLR signaling that induces weak inflammatory response and SHIP1 enhances osteogenic functions

Toll-like receptor （TLR）-mediated inflammatory response could negatively affect bone metabolism. In this study, we determined how osteogenesis is regulated during inflammatory responses that are downstream of TLR signaling. Human primary osteoblasts were cultured in collagen gels. Pam3CSK4 （P3C） and Escherichia coli lipopolysaccharide （EcLPS） were used as TLR2 and TLR4 ligand respectively. Porphyromonas gingivalis LPS having TLR2 activity with either TLR4 agonism （Pg1690） or TLR4 antagonism （Pg1449） and mutant E. coli LPS （LPxE/LPxF/WSK） were used. IL-lp, SH2-containing inositol phosphatase-1 （SHIP1） that has regulatory roles in osteogenesis, alkaline phosphatase and mineralization were analyzed. 3α-Aminocholestane （3AC） was used to inhibit SHIP1. Our results suggest that osteoblasts stimulated by P3C, poorly induced IL-1β but strongly upregulated SHIP1 and enhanced osteogenic mediators. On the contrary, EcLPS significantly induced IL-1β and osteogenic mediators were not induced. While Pg1690 downmodulated osteogenic mediators, Pg1449 enhanced osteogenic responses, suggesting that TLR4 signaling annuls osteogenesis even with TLR2 activity. Interestingly, mutant E. coli LPS that induces weak inflammation upregulated osteogenesis, but SHIP1 was not induced. Moreover, inhibiting SHIP1 significantly upregulated TLR2-mediated inflammatory response and downmodulated osteogenesis. In conclusion, these results suggest that induction of weak inflammatory response through TLR2 （with SHIP1 activity） and mutant TLR4 ligands could enhance osteogenesis.

URANS simulations of ship motion responses in long-crest irregular waves

In this paper, numerical prediction of ship motion responses in long-crest irregular waves by the URANS-VOF method is presented. A white noise spectrum is applied to generate the incoming waves to evaluate the motion responses. The procedure can replace a decade of simulations in regular wave with one single run to obtain a complete curve of linear motion response, considerably reducing computation time. A correction procedure is employed to adjust the wave generation signal based on the wave spectrum and achieves fairly better results in the wave tank. Three ship models with five wave conditions are introduced to validate the method. The computations in this paper are completed by using the solver naoe-FOAM-SJTU, a solver developed for ship and ocean engineering based on the open source code OpenFOAM. The computational motion responses by the irregular wave procedure are compared with the results by regular wave, experiments and strip theory. Transfer functions by irregular wave closely agree with the data obtained in the regular waves, showing negligible difference. The comparison between computational results and experiments also show good agreements. The results better predicted by CFD method than strip theories indicate that this method can compensate for the inaccuracy of the strip theories. The results confirm that the irregular wave procedure is a promising method for the accurate prediction of motion responses with less accuracy loss and higher efficiency compared with the regular wave procedure.

RECENT RESEARCHES ON THE RESPONSES OF SHIPS AT SEAS IN CHINA

In China, the research works on the seakeeping of ships were started at the middle of 50's. At that time the ship models were generally tested in head or following waves in towing tanks. Afterwards, based on the theory of linear superpo- sition and stripping method, the simple ship motions were predicted theoretically. During the beginning of 70's, a 69×46×4m^3 seakeeping tank with a large movable bridge on it had been completed in the China Ship Scientific Research Center, Wuxi, then models could be tested in regular and irregular long crested. waves along any directions, thus realistic sea waves were simulated. In order to meet the demand of the oil-drilling beneath the sea bed, and to match the design works of drilling platforms, a large amount of research works on the wave forces acting on different kinds of poles were started. In this paper, the research works of recent ten years on the optimum seakeeping ship forms, roll and anti-rolling system, ship stability, waves and wave forces acting on ship and offshore structures are briefly reviewed. The references cited are limited to the papers published in the Shipbuilding of China, Advances in Hydrodynamics and some proceedings of international confer- ences.