Projects

Prediction of Ship Operationality Considering Wave Climate and Ship Behaviour (SEAKEEPING)

Duration: 01.12.1998 – 28.02.2001 (24 months)

Coordination: Instituto Superior Técnico

Partners: Direcção de Navios, Marinha Escola Naval (Portugal)

Funding Entity: Foundation of Portuguese Universities / Ministry of Defence

The operability of a ship may be defined as the ability to carry out her mission safely. It is however known that the seastate tends to degradate the operability of ships as compared to calm water conditions. The reason is the wave induced motions and accelerations which may degradate the working conditions on board, and/or cause structural damage to the ship or cargo. The objective of the project is to assess the seakeeping quality of the Portuguese Navy Ships and calculate the percentage of time that the different ships can operate, during relatively large periods (as examples, one season or one year), and in different ocean areas within the portuguese ZEE. The seakeeping quality of the ships will be defined as the percentage of time that the ship can operate in given ocean area. An optimum ship will have a seakeping index of 1. The seakeeping index depends of the seastates which occour on the areas where the ship will operate, appropriated seakeeping criteria and the hydrodynamic characteristics of the ship. The aceptable limits for the motions and accelerations on board depend of the mission of the ship and these limits will be defined by seakeeping criteria.

Project Team

Associated Publications