Lecture 02

14.5 Release

ANSYS Aqwa Basics & Theory

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

Release 14.5

A. Description of program capabilities

Modelling in Aqwa

Diffracting or non-diffracting panels

Morison elements
TUBE
STUB
DISC
Point masses
Mixed models
Moorings
Linear springs
Elastic catenaries
Intermediate buoys
Tethers
Pulleys
Fenders
Articulations

New for v14.0

ANSYS Aqwa Workbench Integration

Time history animation

Frequency Domain Drag Linearization

Extension of drag linearization in Aqwa-Line to include drag on DISC

and STUB elements as well as TUBEs
Linearized drag in Aqwa-Fer

Multi-directional Wave Spectra

Extension to Aqwa-Fer

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

Release 14.5

... Description of program capabilities

Modelling in Aqwa Environment

Waves
Regular / irregular
Time history

Wave Spectra

Pierson-Moskowitz
JONSWAP
User-defined
Cross-swell

Current
Uniform
Profile

Wind
Uniform
Spectra
Time history

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

Release 14.5

... Description of program capabilities

Radiation/Diffraction

Multiple structures including hydrodynamic

interaction
Hydrodynamic coefficients (added mass and
damping)
RAOs
Drift coefficients (Near / far field, full QTF matrix)
Shear Force / Bending Moment
Splitting forces
Pressure distribution for transfer to structural
model

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

Release 14.5

... Description of program capabilities

Load Transfer

Calculation and transfer of hydrodynamic loads to ANSYS Mechanical

Aqwa
Hydrodynamic
Model

ANSYS
Mechanical
Model

AQWA
WAVE

Motions & Pressures

ANSYS Pressure plot

Aqwa Pressure plot

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

Release 14.5

... Description of program capabilities

Equilibrium and Stability

Computes static equilibrium position for multiple environmental and mooring

configurations
Preliminary mooring design
Calculates static / dynamic stability

Frequency Domain

Significant motions at low frequency/wave frequency in frequency domain

Permits rapid analysis using linearized parameters of mooring systems
Graphs for response spectra / RAOs & other parameters
Wave spreading and 2D spectra

Time Domain

Time-history analysis of multiple structures with irregular waves

Can use full QTF matrix for shallow water conditions
Import of wave height time history
Input of forces via user-defined .dll
Output of motions and forces
Graphical and animation results

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

Release 14.5

... Description of program capabilities

Large amplitude motions

Non-linear time-history analysis with large (survival) waves

Regular or irregular waves
Integration of pressure over wetted surface
Standard plus short crested wave option

Cable dynamics

Additional cost item for more rigorous simulation of mooring line

behaviour
Provides full coupled vessel/mooring line analyses

Excel Interface

Aqwa specific functions add-in for Excel for data and results retrieval,
processing and report generation

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

Release 14.5

...Description of program capabilities

Currently in Workbench (Release 14.0)

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

Import of geometry from ANSYS DesignModeler

Interactive data modification and editing
Native meshing
Diffraction/radiation analysis
Definition of moorings, articulations and fenders
Definition of environment
Time domain analysis
Graph plotting
Wave surface and pressure contour plots

March 21, 2013

Release 14.5

B. Aqwa Basics
Aqwa Global Coordinate System

Aqwa Global Coordinate System is referred to as the Fixed Reference Axes (FRA):
The origin lies in the still water plane
The positive z axis is vertically upwards
A right handed system
It is not related to the directions
North, South, East and West

y
W.L.

Rigid body motions:

Stern

y
Portside

Starboard

Surge, Sway, Heave translational

Roll, Pitch, Yaw
- rotational
The direction of motion are relative to the geometry definition of
vessel/structure (x is not surge by default!!)
2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

Bow
x

Release 14.5

... Aqwa Basics

Hydrostatics

Archimedess principle
Buoyancy of an immersed body = weight of the fluid displaced

Hydrostatic pressure

p gZ 0

Z0

G: centre of gravity
B: centre of buoyancy
Buoyancy is the resultant of all hydrostatic force over wetted surface

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

10

Release 14.5

... Aqwa Basics

Environmental direction in Aqwa

The wave, wind and current directions are defined in Aqwa as the directions

which they are travelling towards.

The direction is defined as the angle between the wave (or current, wind) and
the positive x axis measured anti-clockwise (For a ship facing forward to + x axis,
this means 0 is astern seas and 180 is head seas).
Directions in AQWA are input and output in degrees.
Wave direction (or current, wind)

positive angle
X axis

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

11

Release 14.5

... Aqwa Basics

Phase angle

In Aqwa, the phase angle ( in degrees) of a parameter defines the time

difference (dt) from the time when the wave crest is at the COG of the
structure to the time when the parameter reaches its peak value.
dt= *T/360, where T is the wave period

A positive phase angle indicates that the parameter lags behind the wave.
dt

CoG

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

12

Release 14.5

... Aqwa Basics

Regular waves:

Airy Waves (linear wave)

a = A cos (-t + kx)
(: frequency in radians/sec; k: wave number)

Stokes 2nd Order Waves

a = A cos (-t + kx) + 0.5 k A cos2(-t + kx)

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

13

Release 14.5

... Aqwa Basics

Irregular waves:
Wave spectrum types accepted in Aqwa are:

Pierson-Moskowitz (PM) spectrum

JONSWAP spectrum
Gaussian
User defined spectrum
Cross Swell (using any of the above)

Irregular waves can be in the form of:

Long crested waves; OR

Short crested waves, i.e. a directional spread sea (available in some features
so far)

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

14

Release 14.5

... Aqwa Basics

Wind:

Uniform wind
Ochi and Shin wind spectrum
API wind spectrum
NPD wind spectrum
User-defined wind spectrum

Current :

Uniform velocity current

Velocity profiled current

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

15

Release 14.5

C. Theory in Aqwa
Hydrodynamic Forces on Structures (on diffraction elements)
Fluid force

Hydrodynamic

Hydrostatic

Radiation force due

to structure motion

Wave exciting force

Ambient pressure
(incident wave or
Froude-Krylov force)

Effect of structure
on waves
(Diffraction)

F()

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

In-phase
(Added Mass)

Out-of-phase
(Radiation
damping)

Ma().x

B().x

16

C.x

Release 14.5

... Theory in Aqwa

Wave Forces for Diffracting Structures (modelled with plate
elements)

Incident wave force (Froude-Krylov force): from the pressure in the

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

undisturbed waves.
Diffraction force: due to stationary structure disturbing the incident
waves.
Radiation force: due to structures oscillation which generates waves.
Drift force (net force due to high order effect)

March 21, 2013

17

Release 14.5

... Theory in Aqwa

Hydrodynamic forces for non-diffracting structures (modelled with Morison
elements e.g. TUBE, DISC)

For slender cylindrical elements (D/<0.2), e.g. tube elements, the hydrodynamic
force (including drag) on unit length of the element can be calculated using Morison
equation:

1
F aw Ca aw Ca X Cd DV V
2

Ca and Cd are the added mass and drag coefficients of the element;
is the volume of the element (per unit length)
D is the element diameter,
V is the relative velocity,
is the wave length.
Radiation force
Drag force
Froude-Krylov force

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

Wave inertia force

18

Release 14.5

... Theory in Aqwa

3D Potential Theory solution

Viscous forces are not taken into account

Ideal fluid, irrotational, incompressible
Small wave elevation
Boundary condition problem is solved by satisfying

Body Boundary condition (Timman-Newman relations)

Linearized free surface condition
Sea bed boundary condition
Radiation condition
Solution for diffracted and radiated wave potentials uses a pulsating source distribution (zero
speed solution with forward speed corrections)

Theory applies to finite depth and diffraction problem is solved in frequency

domain

Shallow water solution is available

Both 1st Order and 2nd Order wave forces are calculated

2nd Order forces can be calculated from either near field or far field solutions
For more details on the exact formulations please refer to Aqwa Theory Manual
2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

19

Release 14.5

... Theory in Aqwa

Full Quadratic Transfer Function (QTF)

Components at both difference and sum frequencies

Each with in-phase and out-of-phase parts

F ( 2) (t ) Pij cos i j t i j Pij cos i j t i j

N N

i 1 j 1

Qij sin i j t i j Qij sin i j t i j

N N

i 1 j 1

The second order wave potential does not contribute to the diagonal terms of the
QTF matrix, so that it has no effect on the mean wave drift force. However, the
second order wave potential contributes to the off-diagonal terms of the QTF. It
has been found that in shallow water the QTFs (drift force coefficients) can be
increased significantly by the second order potential. Therefore, the inclusion of the
second order incident and diffracted potential is necessary for the accurate
evaluation of the second order wave exciting forces in shallow water. In Aqwa this
is done using the Pinkster approximation (Pinkster, 1980).

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

20

Release 14.5

... Theory in Aqwa

Equations of Motions

The response X of a structure in waves is calculated by solving the equation of

motion in the frequency domain for unit wave amplitude:
[ 2 (M s M a ( )) iB( ) C ] X ( ) F ( )

where Ms is structure mass

Ma is added mass (frequency dependent)
B is damping (frequency dependent)
C is hydrostatic stiffness
F is wave force (incident and diffracting forces).

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

21

Release 14.5

... Theory in Aqwa

Long Story Short:

Fluid force

Hydrodynamic

Hydrostatic

Radiation force due

to structure motion

Wave exciting force

Ambient pressure
(incident wave or
Froude-Krylov force)

Effect of structure
on waves
(Diffraction)

F()

MS x +

In-phase
(Added Mass)

Ma().x

Out-of-phase
(Radiation
damping)

B().x

C.x

Structural Mass
2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

22

Release 14.5

D. Workbench HD Basics
WB HD shares common conventions with other Workbench
products where appropriate
The basic interface consists of a number of areas
Toolbars
Analysis tree
Details panel
Graphical model representation and results presentation or
textual results

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

23

Release 14.5

... Workbench HD Basics

Standard Workbench Toolbars
View manipulation
Selection control

File shortcuts
Aqwa Specific Toolbars
Show/Hide element boundaries

Turn on/off object highlighting

Show/Hide Seabed and Water Surface

Solve shortcuts
2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

24

Release 14.5

... Workbench HD Basics

WB HD Tree view
As with other Workbench applications
the tree and details panel are used to
define the organization of the
simulation requirements and associated
data.
As a tree object is selected the data
related to that object will be presented
in the details panel

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

25

Release 14.5

... Workbench HD Basics

WB HD Tree view
Each vessel/structure is associated with a Part, in
this case Ship
Bodies make up a Part. These are defined in
DesignModeler
Some Aqwa specific geometry based objects may
be added directly within AqwaWB
Objects that define the additional data required for
undertaking the hydrodynamic analysis

Results objects that may be added as required.

When selected they change the view in the main
visualization window
Object excluded
Object included and up to date
Object changed since last solve, or no solve has been undertaken
Object is up to date for the Hydrostatic solve
2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

26

Release 14.5

... Workbench HD Basics

Model and results presentation

The main graphical area responds to what is selected in the object tree
If geometry or mesh based information is selected then this will show a
visualization of the information requested on the Geometry tab.
If textual results are requested (such as Hydrostatic information) this will be
shown on the Properties tab.

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

27

Release 14.5

E. Workbench HTR Basics

WB HTR extends the functionality of
the WB HD system by providing
definition of connections, such as
moorings, and environmental data,
such as waves, wind and current
WB HTR allows time history dynamic
analyses to be undertaken with various
wave definitions

Regular wave
Irregular wave (large amplitude)
Irregular wave with slow drift
Slow drift effects only

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

28

Release 14.5

... Workbench HTR Basics

When applying current and/or wind loading (which are viscous effects)
coefficients have to be provided that relate applied force to the relative
current/wind velocity for a given vessel under Geometry
The rotational terms about X and Y allow the inclusion of the moment arising
from the distance between the effective centre of loaded area to the COG
(where Aqwa applies the actual load)

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

29

Release 14.5

... Workbench HTR Basics

Mooring lines require connection points on both the vessel geometry
(fairleads) and at anchor locations (for moorings connected to ground)
Vessel connections are defined underneath the associated structure geometry
entry. Connections can either be defined explicitly (as X, Y, Z coordinates in the
global system), or as offsets from existing vertices in the model.

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

30

Release 14.5

... Workbench HTR Basics

Similarly anchor locations are defined at the Geometry level. Coordinates are
always in the global system.

Mooring lines can then be added from Connections. These lines can be
between two structures (vessels), or from a structure to a fixed point (anchor
location). The Connection Stiffness shown here is typically used to model the
effects of mooring lines on the HD system, where moorings cannot be explicitly
utilized.

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

31

Release 14.5

... Workbench HTR Basics

Joints, or physical connections also require connection points to be defined.
Joint types are Ball & Socket, Universal, Hinged or Rigid.
Joints can then be added from Connections. These joints can be between two
structures, or from a structure to a fixed point.
Joint local axes can be defined to correctly orientate the desired connection.
Stiffness, damping and friction may be associated with the joint freedoms.

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

32

Release 14.5

Workshop 2.1 ANSYS Aqwa HD

Workshop 2.1 ANSYS Aqwa Hydrodynamic Diffraction
Goal:

Create a hydrodynamic radiation/diffraction model

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

33

Release 14.5

Workshop 2.2 ANSYS Aqwa HTR

Workshop 2.2 ANSYS Aqwa HydrodynamicTime Response
Goal:

Create a mooring system and run a time history analysis

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

34

Release 14.5

Workshop 2.3 ANSYS Aqwa Articulations

Workshop 2.3 ANSYS Aqwa Articulations
Goal:

Create an articulated system consisting of a turret moored FPSO

2012 ANSYS, Inc.

March 21, 2013

35

Release 14.5