ACCORDING TO PHILIPPINE PORTS AUTHORITY, MORISON EQUATION IS USED FOR COMPUTING WAVE FORCES ON

CYLINDRICAL MEMBERS

d = depth
D = diameter of cylinder

Consider a segment dz in a cylinder with a height s from seabed and a dF as the force acting on it wherein dF Is the
summation of dFd and dFi or summation of inertia force and drag force

Inertia force = the resistance of any physical object to any change of velocity of the wave
drag force = a force acting opposite to the relative motion of any object with respect to its surrounding liquid
 pi Dsqrd
dFi = Cm * p ( )* ů dz
4

Cm = inertia coefficient (PPA suggests CM = 2.0)

D = diameter of cylinder
ů = water particle acceleration
dFi = intertial force on the segment dz
p = mass density of fluid

dFd = 0.5 * Cd * p * D * |u| * u dz

dFd = drag force on the segment dz

u = water particle velocity

COMBINING BOTH WE GET MORISON EQUATION

pi Dsqrd
dF = (Cm * p ( )* ů + 0.5 * Cd * p * D * |u| * u) dz
4

If the cylinder extends from the ocean floor to the still water line, the total force in the integral is given by the integral
0
Ft = ∫ ¿ ¿ dz
−d

If you’re wondering why –d because z = 0 on still water level and to compute the maximum force, we need to integrate
from sea bed to still water line/level wherein z = 0 on still water line and z = -d on seabed

u=¿

Ů=

k = 2pi/L
L = wave length
Ft is a function theta

To compute the theta which will give maximum force, we will derive the formula Ft and equate to 0 with respect to
theta, dF / dtheta