Analysis of the Experimental Data of Slamming Loads on a Liquefied Natural Gas Carrier in Abnormal Waves

Abstract The objective of the paper is to identify slamming characteristics of ships in abnormal waves by analyzing the experimental slamming loads for a liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier from the model tests of the ship, which were conducted at the Ocean Engineering Division of the Technical University Berlin at a model scale of 1:70. To validate the experiments, the numerical results from a time domain nonlinear strip theory code are compared with the measurement of the ship motions and vertical bending moment amidships of the LNG carrier in the New Year wave. The time series of the slamming pressures on different locations (on the bow and stern) obtained in the experiments are analyzed and discussed by studying the peaks using the analytical distribution models, namely, Weibull distribution, generalized extreme value distribution, and the Gumbel distribution. The extreme values of the pressure peaks obtained using the three distribution models are compared. Discussion is also provided for the results with two different Froude numbers in order to check the effects of the ship speed on the phenomenon.