Stabilization of the Pontoon System for a Heavy Lift Vessel

Tan, Dexter Zhen Liang (2021) Stabilization of the Pontoon System for a Heavy Lift Vessel. Final Year Project (Bachelor), Tunku Abdul Rahman University College.

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Abstract

Pontoon is a floating object with flat-bottom or a metal cylinder with hollow structure that were used as a temporary bridge or floating stage for landing purpose. In order to improve stability of heavy lift pontoon, a favourable hydrodynamic response are required on certain wave oscillation conditions by increasing its overall size. The objectives of this study are to determine the stability of heavy lift vessel pontoons when floating in the water and to design improved stability of heavy lift pontoon based on the existing model’s structures and comparing the hydrodynamic responses of existing and new model design under regular wave. The methodology in this study used Solidworks to model the single pontoon type heavy lift vessel which is the existing model and design new model with improved stability whereby ANSYS AQWA was used for hydrodynamic diffraction simulation for both models. A series of regular wave oscillation were set to incident wave height of 0.4 m and frequency between 1.718 rad/s to 1.817 rad/s. The environment were assumed windless and no current found underneath the sea. Before the proceed to hydrodynamic diffraction simulation, mesh convergence tests were done on both existing and new design models in order to achieve the most suitable mesh size for the most accurate results. Next is the validation of models, the existing model was validated with AM Klooster model to ensure the existing and new design models are able achieve similar metacentric height and hydrodynamic responses patterns. With the comparison of both existing and new design models, it indicated that by increasing overall size of pontoon and vessel and adding additional pontoon at the skirt of main pontoon can improve stability of the pontoon floating on the sea level and reduce overall hydrodynamic responses.