Forecast of Critical Wave Groups From Surface Elevation Snapshots

Reports on damages of ships, cargo and structures during heavy seas have been increasing within the last years. The impact of single extreme waves or wave groups on marine structures and ships causes enormous forces often leading to critical situations or even loss of crew, ship and cargo. Dangerous situations can be predicted by a forecast of encountering wave trains and the identification of critical wave groups. The paper presents a method to calculate the wave train a ship will encounter from surface elevation snapshots of the surrounding sea, taken by the ship radar. The time-dependent surface elevation snapshot far ahead of the ship is transferred into frequency domain by the use of Fast Fourier Transformation (FFT). The resulting complex Fourier spectrum given over the inverse wave length 1/L is converted into an amplitude spectrum and a phase spectrum. By shifting the phase spectrum to the position of the cruising ship the encountering waves can in turn be calculated in advance — depending on speed. The permanent processing of incoming snapshots delivers a continuous prediction of the water surface elevation at the position of the cruising ship. Based on these data the expected ship motion behaviour can be calculated continuously in time domain. In addition the response spectra, resulting from the wave spectrum and the relevant RAOs, are also evaluated. As wave data far ahead of the ship are used, it allows a forward glance, and dangerous situations, particularly resonance and parametric resonance are detectable before the ship is encountering this wave train. Consequently, the procedure can be used by the master as an assistance support system.