Two-dimensional numerical study of gap resonance coupling with motions of floating body moored close to a bottom-mounted wall

The piston mode fluid resonance in the narrow gap between a moored floating body and a bottom-mounted vertical wall is numerically investigated based on a two-dimensional potential flow model and viscous numerical simulations. This study focuses on understanding the effect of mooring stiffness on the coupling dynamics of the gap resonance and the sway or heave motion of the floating body in regular waves. Numerical studies show that the resonant wave amplitude in the gap is reduced by the sway and heave motions. The reduction is highly dependent on the mooring stiffness. Two resonant frequencies are confirmed, and both increase with the mooring stiffness. Different modes of motions are identified in terms of the phase difference between the oscillatory motions of the gap flow and the floating body. Higher harmonic components of responses are found for the specific mooring stiffness. The performance of potential flow models in predicting resonant responses is revisited based on the understanding that the overall damping effect consists of two parts: (1) radiation damping and (2) viscous dissipation. It is confirmed that a potential model is also able to produce reasonable predictions as radiation damping plays a dominant role, for example, at the second resonant frequencies of coupling the gap resonance with the sway motion. Otherwise, as viscous dissipation dominates radiation damping, noticeable over-predictions by a potential model occur as recognized before, for example, the present results at the second peak response of gap resonance with the heave motion. The relative viscous dissipation is quantified with the reflection coefficient of viscous numerical results, while the radiation damping is quantified based on a specially designed radiation potential model with inputs of viscous numerical solutions.