Homotopy Method for Inverse Design of the Bulbous Bow of A Container Ship

The homotopy method is utilized in the present inverse hull design problem to minimize the wave-making coefficient of a 1300 TEU container ship with a bulbous bow. Moreover, in order to improve the computational efficiency of the algorithm, a properly smooth function is employed to update the homotopy parameter during iteration. Numerical results show that the homotopy method has been successfully applied in the inverse design of the ship hull. This method has an advantage of high performance on convergence and it is credible and valuable for engineering practice.

Inverse Optimal Control for Speed-varying Path Following of Marine Vessels with Actuator Dynamics

A controller which is locally optimal near the origin and globally inverse optimal for the nonlinear system is proposed for path following of over actuated marine crafts with actuator dynamics. The motivation is the existence of undesired signals sent to the actuators, which can result in bad behavior in path following. To attenuate the oscillation of the control signal and obtain smooth thrust outputs, the actuator dynamics are added into the ship maneuvering model. Instead of modifying the Line-of-Sight (LOS) guidance law, this proposed controller can easily adjust the vessel speed to minimize the large cross-track error caused by the high vessel speed when it is turning. Numerical simulations demonstrate the validity of this proposed controller.

Research on stress concentration factor of tube joints under pure bending and torsion loading

For fatigue strength design and evaluation as well as for multiaxial fatigue tests analysis of welded structures, the stress concentration factor(SCF) at the weld must be known. In the present study, two common models of multiaxial fatigue tests, tube-plate(TP) model and tube-tube(TT) model are selected as the research objects. SCFs of the two models with various geometric parameters under pure bending and pure torsion loading have been investigated by conducting a series of three-dimensional(3 D) finite element models based on linear elasticity theory. The effect of weld width(w), plate thickness(t), weld toe notch radius(r), and reinforcement angle(θ) on SCF is assessed. The quadratic parametric equations based on t/r are proposed to predict SCFs of the two models, which reveal satisfactory accuracy.

Structural and acoustic response of a finite stiffened conical shell

In this paper, a precise transfer matrix method is presented to calculate the struc- tural and acoustic responses of the conical shell. The governing equations of conical shells are written as a coupled set of first order differential equations. The field transfer matrix of the shell and non-homogenous term resulting from the external excitation are obtained by precise integra- tion method. After assembling the field transfer matrixes, the whole matrix describing dynamic behavior of the stiffened conical shell is obtained. Then the structural and acoustic responses of the shell are solved by obtaining unknown sound pressure coefficients. The natural frequencies of the shell are compared with the FEM results to test the validity. Furthermore, the effects of the semi-vertex angle, driving force directions and boundary conditions on the structural and acoustic responses are studied.

A radial basis function for reconstructing complex immersed boundaries in ghost cell method

It is important to track and reconstruct the complex immersed boundaries for simulating fluid structure interaction problems in an immersed boundary method（IBM）. In this paper, a polynomial radial basis function（PRBF） method is introduced to the ghost cell immersed boundary method for tracking and reconstructing the complex moving boundaries. The body surfaces are fitted with a finite set of sampling points by the PRBF, which is flexible and accurate. The complex or multiple boundaries could be easily represented. A simple treatment is used for identifying the position information about the interfaces on the background grid. Our solver and interface reconstruction method are validated by the case of a cylinder oscillating in the fluid. The accuracy of the present PRBF method is comparable to the analytic function method. In ta flow around an airfoil, the capacity of the proposed method for complex geometries is well demonstrated.