The Vertical Mean Force and Moment of Submerged Bodies Under Waves

Abstract

A neutrally buoyant slender body of arbitrary sectional form, submerged beneath a free surface, is free to respond to an incident plane progressive wave system. The fluid is assumed inviscid, incompressible, homogeneous and infinitely deep. The first-order oscillatory motion of the body and the second-order time-average vertical force and pitching moment acting on the body are obtained in terms of Kochin's function. By use of slender-body theory for a deeply submerged body, the final expressions for the mean force and the moment are shown to depend on the longitudinal distribution of sectional area and added mass and on the amplitude and the frequency of the ambient surface waves. The magnitude of the mean force for various simple geometric cylinders is compared with that of a circular cylinder of equal cross-sectional area. The mean force on a nonaxisymmetric body is often approximated by replacing the section with circular profiles of equivalent cross-sectional area. A better scheme of approximation is presented, based on a simple way of estimating the two-dimensional added mass. It is expected that the effect of the cross-sectional geometry on mean vertical force and moment will be more significant when the body is very close to the free surface.