A Coupled CS-DSG3/BEM Method for Hydroelastic Analysis of Pontoon-Type VLFS with Arbitrary Plan Shape

The cell-based smoothed discrete shear gap method (CS-DSG3) was introduced for analysing Mindlin plates. This method employs three-node triangular elements and can produce solutions with high accuracy. This research aims to combine CS-DSG3 with the Boundary Element Method (BEM) to perform hydroelastic analyses on pontoon-type Very Large Floating Structures (VLFS) with varying plan shapes. In this study, the VLFS is conceptualized as a Mindlin plate resting on an ideal fluid. The structural and fluid domains are discretized using three-node triangular elements. The structural equation is formulated using CS-DSG3, while the water equation is established using BEM. The hydroelastic analysis is conducted within the frequency domain. To validate the accuracy of the CS-DSG3/BEM approach, its results are compared with available published solutions. The proposed method is then employed in parametric investigations involving various VLFS plan shapes to explore how the shape influences hydroelastic responses.