Advances on simulation of wave-body interactions under consideration of the nonlinear free water surface

The paper refers to a boundary element method (BEM) in the time domain for the simulation of wave-body interactions considering the free water surface. The approach solves the boundary integral equations for the velocity and the acceleration potential. The model of the free water surface in this approach is based on the mixed-Eulerian-Lagrangian (MEL) method. Validation results are presented for two well-studied test cases. The first validation case is dedicated to the free water surface. Here, the nonlinear wave loads on a truncated cylinder are analysed and compared with a higher-order panel method and experimental data. Second, results of a Wigley hull moving with forward speed in head waves are shown and compared with experimental results published by Kashiwagi. The validation results in both test cases generally show good agreement with published data and demonstrate the ability of BEM to investigate different types of hydrodynamic problems related to wave-body interactions.