Abstract
Recently, with the increase in requirements for marine development, a marine urbanism is being visualized, with more and more huge-scale structures at the scope of the ocean space utilization. In particular, a pontoon-type structure has attracted attention, since The Floating Structures Association of Japan proposed a new concept as the most suitable one of floating airports. The Very Lage Floating Structure (VLFS) is considered a flexible structure, for a quite large length-to-breadth ratio and its geometrical flexibility. The main objective of this study is to makean exact and convenient prediction about the hydro-elastic response on very large offshore structures in waves. The numerical approach for the hydro-elastic responses is based on the combination of the three dimensional source distribution method and the dynamic response analysis method, which assumed a dividing pontoon type structure, as many rigid bodies connected elastic beam elements. The established hydo-elastic theory was applied to the radiation forces caused by motions of a whole structure, formulated using the global coordinate system, which has the origin at the center of the structure. However, in this paper, we took radiation forces, occurred by individual motions of floating bodies, into consideration. The calculated results show good agreement with the experimental and calculated results by Yago.
