Journal of Ship Research, Vol. 52, No. 1, March 2008, pp.

30–44

Abnormal Wave-Induced Load Effects in Ship Structures

C. Guedes Soares, N. Fonseca, and R. Pascoal

Center of Marine Engineering and Technology, Technical University of Lisbon, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal

The paper presents an approach to determine the global load effects induced on ship
structures by abnormal, freak, or episodic waves. It refers to the present procedure
of determining extreme values of wave-induced responses, including the recent ad-
vances of adopting time series of wave elevation as reference design conditions to
calculate the wave-induced structural loads on ships in heavy weather. It is shown
how this procedure can be extended to account for abnormal or episodic waves.
Reference is made to what is presently known about abnormal or freak waves,
showing that although it is possible to determine the loads induced by these waves
in floating and fixed structures, the present knowledge about the probability of oc-
currence of these waves is not enough to allow a wave design criterion to be defined
in a way consistent with the present probabilistic approaches. However, it is sug-
gested that at the present stage of knowledge it is possible to determine the loads
induced by abnormal waves similar to ones that have been measured at various
ocean locations and that are thus realistic; a method is described to perform such
calculations. Although this information cannot replace the wave-induced loads cal-
culated with the presently established procedures, it can serve as guidance for the
design. An application example is presented of a containership subjected to a wave
trace that includes an episodic wave that was measured during a severe storm in
Central North Sea. The measured wave time history is modified in order to investigate
the influence of the wave steepness on the induced vertical motions and loads. The
loads induced by the abnormal wave are compared for the first time with extreme
values from long-term distributions.

Keywords: abnormal waves; freak waves; nonlinear vertical bending moments; time
domain simulations; extreme loads

1. Introduction
NOWADAYS there is a tendency to move from empirical proce-
dures to methods based on the first principles to define the criteria
for reliability-based structural design of ships (Guedes Soares et
al. 1996). The approach relies on a probabilistic model of struc-
tural strength and on a long-term probability distribution of wave-
induced loads, allowing the identification of the conditions that are
the largest contributors to the probability of failure. When design-
ing for ultimate strength, these conditions occur in heavy weather,
Manuscript received at SNAME headquarters October 2004; revised manu-
script received April 2007.
and thus the wave-induced load effects are dominated by nonlinear
waves and nonlinear ship responses.
To properly account for the nonlinear effects that develop in
heavy weather, it is necessary to consider time domain codes, as
otherwise the correlation between consecutive motion cycles that
can involve large-amplitude motion with associated nonlinear
forces and such phenomena as water on deck are not properly
taken into account in the frequency domain, which is based on
linearity assumptions. Several approaches have been proposed re-
cently to cope with this problem. This paper adopts the method of
Fonseca and Guedes Soares (1998a), which deals with the effects
of large-amplitude motions, including water on deck. Only rigid
body motions and global structural loads are considered, and
therefore, although the significant changes of buoyancy in the

30 MARCH 2008 0022-4502/08/5201-0030$00.55/0 JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH

forward sections associated with slamming are taken into consid-
eration, the impact due to slamming and the resulting transient hull
vibrations are not taken into account in the present study.
Not accounting for the vibratory response in this context is not
considered an important limitation because it normally occurs in
frequency ranges that are typically one order of magnitude higher
than the wave encounter frequency. This shorter duration of the
stress cycles limits its effect on the global failure of the hull
structure, which normally requires a larger duration to respond and
collapse.
A consistent and first principles–based methodology to estimate
the design wave structural loads on ships requires a correct physi-
cal hydrodynamic model of the ship responses in large waves and
a proper stochastic characterization of the waves and of the ship
responses. To calculate the design wave loads, one has to consider
all possible sea states that the ship encounters during its opera-
tional lifetime. For the linear case, the procedure relies on linear
long-term calculations and it is computationally efficient (Guedes
Soares & Moan 1991).
For several reasons, the same is not true if the ship responses are
nonlinear: First, the time domain simulations are much more time
consuming than linear frequency domain calculations. Second, the
hydrodynamic model needs to be run for all possible sea states of
the scatter diagram, since the responses depend on the significant
wave height. Finally, short-term statistics cannot be represented by
the Rayleigh distribution, and more complicated distributions need
to be applied. Altogether this means that, presently, practical so-
lutions are possible only with simplified stochastic procedures.
Several such procedures have been proposed during recent years
to calculate the design wave loads on ships and offshore structures
accounting for the nonlinear effects. The next paragraphs present
a short review of these methods.
Guedes Soares (1993) and Guedes Soares and Schellin (1998)
generalized the linear long-term predictions procedure to account
for the nonlinear asymmetry of the vertical bending moment. The
new method uses form functions that transform the linear transfer
functions to nonlinear pseudo-transfer functions associated with
different sea states.
Several of the proposed procedures are based on the assumption
that the linear model is a good identifier of the conditions in which
the extreme wave loads occur. Adegeest et al. (1998) propose the
design regular wave method, in which a regular wave is deter-
mined based on linear long-term calculations, and then a nonlinear
simulation is run for that regular wave to determine the design
structural loads.
The coefficients of contribution method also uses linear long-
term calculations to identify the sea states of the scatter diagram
that probably contribute most to the probability of exceedance of
the structural loads during the ship’s life. This way the nonlinear
simulation program is applied to a selected small number of sea
states only. Sagli and Moan (2001) studied the nonlinear vertical
bending moment on a containership in the northern North Sea.
The critical wave episodes method is another possibility, ad-
equate for the most advanced and time-consuming hydrodynamic
models. Torhaug et al. (1998) identified the random incident wave
sequences that result on the ship extreme response by performing
linear time domain analysis for each relevant stationary sea state.
The wave sequences resulting in the largest linear responses are
then applied to the nonlinear analysis. In the most likely response
method (Adegeest et al. 1998, Pastoor et al. 2003), the most likely
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extreme response is first determined by linear frequency domain
analysis. Then, using the theory of Gaussian processes near a
maximum, the corresponding deterministic wave elevation is pro-
duced and applied in the nonlinear simulation.
Another possibility is to use the contour line approach (Sagli &
Moan 2001). With a long-term analysis of the wave climatology it
is possible to define a set of sea states corresponding to a specific
return period. These sea states include the worst environmental
conditions and lie in a closed contour on the scatter diagram. The
design extreme response is the most probable extreme value de-
termined within all short-term sea states of the contour line.
More attention has been given recently to the design for acci-
dental loads. Thus, in addition to the traditional design for the
most probable extreme situations, which would be covered by the
approaches discussed above, one should also consider very un-
likely accidental situations in which the ship should be able to
survive, although with damage. Typical cases are the efforts of
design for damage stability and for crashworthiness. Another situ-
ation, which is of concern in this paper, is the design for abnormal
waves.
The occurrence and the damaging effects of abnormal waves
were identified a while ago, but more recently researchers have
shown a renewed interest (e.g., Faulkner & Buckley 1997) and
have made proposals for specific aspects of design, such as hatch
covers. To develop a consistent approach for the design of the ship
hull girder to these kinds of loads, it is necessary to be able to
predict the likelihood of encountering such waves and also to
predict the effects they induce on the hull. One could anticipate
that if these questions are solved, there might be a set of design
time series that would represent a set of possible abnormal waves
and the relative performance of different ship structural designs
could be compared on the basis of their response to these time
series.
This paper explores the feasibility of progressing in that direc-
tion, by determining the loads induced by a time series that was
recorded in the North Sea, which includes one such abnormal
wave with a height of about 26 meters. Since there is an idea that
the wave-induced loads depend not only on wave height but on
steepness also, the steepness of the abnormal wave was artificially
changed, and it was shown that the wave-induced load effects are
indeed sensitive to those changes.
Therefore, these results are encouraging as to the possibility of
evolving in the direction of defining a criterion for accidental
design against abnormal waves, in the sense that available com-
putation tools will be able to deal with specified design time
series.
Some preliminary results were presented by Fonseca et al.
(2001) concerning the motions and structural loads on a contain-
ership induced by the mentioned rogue wave. The results were
obtained by a nonlinear time domain seakeeping method. The
simulations were carried out in head waves, for the service speed
and also zero speed. In the present paper a more realistic speed of
two-thirds the service speed is used, and a comprehensive inves-
tigation of the influence of the steepness of the rogue wave on the
ship responses is carried out. The maximum vertical bending mo-
ments induced by the rogue waves are compared with rule values
and with design values obtained from linear and nonlinear long-
term distributions.
The same methodology was applied some years later by Clauss
et al. (2004) and Guedes Soares et al. (2006b) to investigate the
JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH 31
structural wave loads on a floating production, storage, and off-
loading unit (FPSO) induced by deterministic rogue waves. This
work included numerical and experimental investigations. Com-
parisons between experiments and simulations showed that the
numerical model is able to represent remarkably well the wave-
induced bending moment at midship in the highly nonlinear
waves, including the asymmetry of the sagging and hogging
peaks, providing an experimental validation of the method used in
the present paper.
2. Characteristics of large and abnormal waves
Different authors have suggested that extremely high ocean
waves may be generated by different mechanisms, but all mecha-
nisms that can lead to these waves are not fully identified and
understood. White and Fornberg (1998) and Lavrenov (1998) ex-
plained the appearance of the abnormal waves by a wave ampli-
fication due to the interaction with current. Pelinovsky and Kharif
(2000) modeled the temporal and spatial focusing as a result of the
wind wave dispersion and of special distribution of their fre-
quency. Trulsen and Dysthe (1997) suggested that the Benjamin-
Feir instability can cause breaking of a wave train into periodic
groups and, further, within each group a focusing takes place,
producing very large and steep waves. Henderson et al. (1999)
also suggested nonlinear instability as a cause of the big waves.
Whatever the nature of the generation process, the designers
and operators of marine structures require information about the
representative shapes of these large waves so that they can be
appropriately considered in design. This is supported by the ex-
amples of heavy weather damages caused by giant waves that have
been presented in the literature during the last 20 years, for ex-
ample, by Kjeldsen (1997) and Faulkner and Buckley (1997),
which contributed to a more widespread belief that the damage to
engineering facilities operated at sea for extended periods is often
determined by the few extreme sea states, not by the frequent and
moderate ones. Also, in these sea states the damage will generally
be induced by few extreme waves rather than by the large majority
of other waves.
Therefore, in the engineering community there has been a major
interest in properly understanding and describing the conditions
associated with extreme waves so that they can be used in the
design process of ships (Fonseca et al. 2001) and offshore struc-
tures (Clauss et al. 2002).
The definition of abnormal or freak wave that seems to be more
generally accepted is the one that has a height larger than twice the
significant wave height, as reviewed in Guedes Soares et al.
(2003). This ratio was denoted the abnormality index (AI) and will
be used as a reference.
Some authors also refer to the ratio of the maximum crest height
to significant wave height as a governing criterion to identify
abnormal waves. In fact, Tomita and Kawamura (2000) define a
genuine freak wave as one in which the AI > 2 and CrD/HsD >
1.30, where CrD is the crest of the down-crossing wave and HsD is
the significant wave height when using the down-crossing defini-
tion of waves.
Guedes Soares et al. (2003) analyzed nine time series of the
Draupner from a storm in the beginning of 1995 and the 421
records of the North Alywn during the storm of November 1997,
from which 24 records were identified as having waves that satisfy
32 MARCH 2008
one of the inequalities and thus that can be classified as abnormal
waves.
The parameters that identify the abnormal waves have been
related to the sea state statistics that describe degree of nonlinear-
ity, namely, the coefficients of skewness and kurtosis, which
should be zero when the distribution of sea surface elevation can
be modeled by a Gaussian distribution.
The correlations between the maximum crest height Crmax D and
several sea state characteristics have been determined by Guedes
Soares et al. (2003). The one found to be more significant is with
the coefficient of skewness ␥3. The regression equation between
the coefficient of skewness and the vertical asymmetry of the
maximum wave, Crmax D/Hmax D, in the full-scale data was:
␥3 = 1.9216 Crmax D Ⲑ Hmax D + 0.98831 (1)
The regression between the abnormality index, calculated with
down-crossing definitions AID, and the coefficient of kurtosis ␥4
for all those sea state records from the North Alwin and the
Draupner is:
AI = 0.467␥4 + 1.577 (2)
A relationship has been derived to approximate the statistics
obtained from full-scale data:
␥4 = 3.764␥23 + 0.236 (3)
These relations allow the degree of nonlinearity of a sea state, as
defined by its coefficients of skewness and of kurtosis, to be used
to determine the expected values of the abnormality index and the
vertical asymmetry of the maximum wave.
Guedes Soares et al. (2004) studied the correlation between
various sea state parameters and the parameters from the largest
individual waves in a sea state. In some cases these waves corre-
sponded to the abnormal waves mentioned, but in other cases they
corresponded to waves to be expected in that population. One
conclusion from that study was that in general the correlations
obtained for the larger waves in each sea state would also fit well
the ones identified as being abnormal, meaning that in this sense
no change in the trend was apparent or, in other words, no abnor-
mal behavior was detected.
The correlation between total ship losses in heavy weather and
the average steepness of sea states in those geographical areas has
been revealed to be surprisingly high, leading to the hypothesis
that steepness may be a governing factor in the damages induced
by bad weather in ships (Guedes Soares et al. 2001). It is therefore
of interest to assess the steepness of the large waves so that this
wave characteristic can be properly modeled in the criteria to be
used for design, in addition to the height and vertical asymmetry
discussed before.
The significant wave height is the variable most widely used to
characterize the degree of severity of sea states, and on many
occasions it is the only one used as a design parameter. Therefore,
it is important to determine how the geometric parameters of the
highest waves in each sea state correlate with the significant wave
height. This will allow conditional probability models to be used
to estimate the expected geometric parameters of the largest wave
based on the prediction of the expected significant wave height.
Guedes Soares et al. (2004) studied a series of wave records
from the North Cormorant in the North Sea and found that the
correlation between the significant wave height and the crest of the
JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH
maximum registered wave was 0.93. The correlation between sig-
nificant wave height and the coefficients of steepness of the indi-
vidual wave, characterizing the front of the maximum wave, were
studied and regressions were derived.
Linear sea states can have the probability density of free surface
elevation modeled by a Gaussian distribution that has zero skew-
ness. This suggests that one can use the skewness of the sea states
as a measure of the degree of nonlinearity, and thus it is very
interesting to know how the degree of nonlinearity relates to the
steepness and asymmetry of the largest waves in the sea state.
The correlation between Hs and skewness ␥3 is 0.70, which
shows that there is a significant relation between these parameters;
that is, the higher the sea state Hs, the more skewed or nonlinear
it is. The relationship between these parameters was also repre-
sented by regressions in Guedes Soares et al. (2003).
Kurtosis is the other statistic that may characterize the nonlin-
earity of sea states. It was concluded by Guedes Soares et al.
(2004) that this parameter is not correlated with any other except
the abnormality index. The present data set can be approximated by:
AI = 0.5325 ␥4 + 1.6252 (4)
The two studies of Guedes Soares et al. (2003, 2004) were based
on limited data sets from the North Sea and produced results that
are more important with respect to identifying the significance of
correlations among various parameters than for the values of the
derived regression coefficients. Although the degree of correlation
may be maintained in other geographical areas, the values of the
regression coefficients will certainly vary.
However, it was shown that it is possible to relate Hs with such
parameters as the coefficient of skewness and of kurtosis, which
describe the nonlinearity of sea states, and in turn with such pa-
rameters as abnormality index, vertical asymmetry, and steepness,
which describe the shape of the largest waves in the sea state.
Therefore, once the extreme sea states for design are specified, it
is possible to determine the characteristics of individual large
waves that would be expected to occur in those sea states. These
would be the waves considered in the analysis described hereafter.
3. Prediction of global structural loads induced by
deterministic wave traces
3.1. Time domain response method
A nonlinear time domain strip method is used to calculate the
wave-induced vertical bending moment on a containership ad-
vancing through a deterministic wave trace that includes a very
large abnormal wave. The response method assumes that the non-
linear contribution for the vertical bending moment is dominated
by hydrostatic and Froude-Krylov forces; thus, these components
depend on the instantaneous hull wetted surface. Radiation and
diffraction forces are linear. Additionally, green water loads on the
deck, which contribute to the calculation of motions and global
loads, are represented by the momentum method. A detailed pre-
sentation of the method is given by Fonseca and Guedes Soares
(1998a, 1998b), and its performance compared with measure-
ments can be seen in Fonseca and Guedes Soares (2004a, 2004b),
for example.
Following St. Denis and Pierson (1953), the wave elevation of
an irregular and stationary sea state may be represented by an
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infinite number of harmonic waves. A wave frequency and ran-
dom phase angle define each harmonic component. Consider an
inertial reference system advancing with the ship mean forward
speed, with the origin at the mean waterline level at the vertical of
the center of gravity, the x axis pointing to the mean bow direction,
the y axis pointing to port side, and the vertical axis pointing
upward. The wave elevation of an irregular and long crested sea
state represented in this reference system is:
N
兺共␨ 兲
␨共x, y, t兲 = − a n cos关共␻e兲nt + knx cos共␤兲 + kny sin共␤兲 + ␧n兴
n=1
(5)
where (␨a)n, kn and ␧n are, respectively, the amplitude, wave num-
ber, and the random phase angle of the harmonic component n,
and (␻e)n is the encounter frequency of the harmonic component
n. The random phase angles are uniformly distributed between 0
and 2␲. For deep water, the dispersion relation that relates the
wave frequency and wave number is (␻0)n2 ⳱ kng.
The exciting forces due to the incident waves are decomposed
into a diffraction part and the Froude-Krylov part. The diffraction
part, which is related to the scattering of the incident wave field
due to the presence of the moving ship, is kept linear. It results
from the solution of the hydrodynamic problem of the ship ad-
vancing with constant speed through the incident waves and re-
strained at her mean position. Since this is a linear problem and the
exciting waves are known a priori, it can be solved in the fre-
quency domain and the resulting transfer functions may be used to
generate a time history of the diffraction heave force and pitch
moment.
In irregular waves the incident wave field pressure results from
the superposition of all the harmonic components used to represent
that wave. Since it is assumed that the diffraction forces are linear,
in irregular waves they are calculated by superimposing the dif-
fraction contribution from every harmonic component defining the
irregular wave. The Froude-Krylov part is related to the incident
wave potential and results from the integration at each time step of
the associated pressure over the wetted surface of the hull under
the undisturbed wave profile.
Within linear theory of harmonic waves, the wave pressure is
defined up to the mean waterline (z ⳱ 0) and does not extend
upward. For this reason, an approximation is assumed to account
for the wave pressure above the mean waterline when the crests
pass through the hull. The pressure is zero at the free surface, and
it is assumed to be hydrostatic between the free surface and z ⳱ 0.
The hydrostatic force and moment are calculated at each time
step by integration of the hydrostatic pressure over the wetted hull
under the undisturbed wave profile. The radiation forces, which
are calculated using a strip method, are represented in the time
domain by infinite frequency added masses, radiation restoring
coefficients, and convolution integrals of memory functions.
The radiation restoring forces, associated with the restoring co-
efficients, represent a correction to the hydrodynamic steady
forces acting on the ship due to the steady flow. The convolution
integrals represent the effects of the whole past history of the
motion accounting for the memory effects due to the radiated
waves. The memory functions and the radiation restoring coeffi-
cients are obtained by relating the radiation forces in the time
domain and in the frequency domain by means of Fourier analysis.
The vertical forces associated with the green water on deck,
JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH 33
which is considered to occur when the relative motion is larger
than the freeboard, are calculated using the momentum method
(Buchner 1995). The mass of water on the deck is proportional to
the height of water on the deck, which is given by the difference
between the relative motion and the freeboard of the ship. The
effect of water on deck is accounted for on the global wave fre-
quency loads, but the transient vibratory responses that may be
associated with the impact of waves on the deck are not consid-
ered.
The method does not account either for the transient vibration
response associated with slamming loads. However, this is not
important in the context since their effect on the global maximum
vertical loads at midship are in general relatively small. They are
felt via elastic response when the bow reenters the free surface,
whereas the maximum midship bending occurs approximately
when the bow is fully submerged; thus, the maximum whipping
moment and maximum sagging moment are in general out of
phase. These vibratory responses, which can be captured by an
elastic model of the ship, are in a frequency higher than those of
interest in this study.
The wave-induced dynamic structural loads at a cross section
are given by the difference between the inertia forces and the sum
of the hydrodynamic forces acting on the part of the hull forward
of that section. The formulation to calculate all hydrodynamic
contributions for the loads is consistent with the formulation ap-
plied to solve the unsteady motion problem. The convention for
the loads is such that the hogging bending moment is positive.
A comprehensive experimental program was carried out with a
model of a containership advancing in regular and irregular waves,
with the objective of acquiring nonlinear experimental data to
compare with results from the computer code applying the de-
scribed methodology (Fonseca & Guedes Soares 2004a, 2004b). It
was concluded that the computer code is able to represent the
nonlinear effects identified in the experiments.
Some other computer codes are available to perform these types
of calculations. The Committee VI.1 of the International Ship and
Offshore Structures Committee (Jensen et al. 2000) has reviewed
the available methods and concluded that for practical applications
the methods that were more appropriate are the ones based on an
approach similar to the one sketched above. Examples of such
methods are those proposed by Xia et al. (1998), Watanabe and
Sawada (1986), and Tao and Incecik (1998). A comparison of the
predictions of these types of codes can be found in Watanabe and
Guedes Soares (1999).
3.2. Simulation of wave time traces
In this paper the ship responses, and in particular the structural
loads, are calculated applying a predefined time series of wave
elevation that consists of a 20-minute wave elevation record from
a severe storm that occurred in the Central North Sea and was
reported for the first time by Haver and Karunakaran (1998). This
interesting wave trace was measured by a laser sensor on the
Draupner jacket platform on January 1, 1995. It includes a very
large wave crest that can be considered an abnormal wave accord-
ing to the presently accepted definitions. The objective of this
study is to assess how the ship behaves in such an extreme wave
and how the induced structural loads compare to the design wave
loads calculated from traditional methods.
The motions and loads are calculated using a code based on the
34 MARCH 2008
time domain method presented in the former section. Basically, a
simulation is carried out with the ship advancing through a wave
trace that includes the “abnormal wave” and has the same signif-
icant wave height and mean wave period as the one measured. If
the ship is not advancing (zero forward speed), then at the midship
position the simulated wave trace is similar to the measured one.
As a first step to calculate the wave exciting forces, it is nec-
essary to derive a representation in the time and space domains of
the incident wave field that is consistent with the time history of
the wave elevation defined at a particular point. The time record
was collected from a stationary ultrasonic sensor measuring the
distance between its location in a platform and the sea surface.
This time signal was inverted in order to obtain relative wave
elevation and was transformed from time to frequency domain by
a fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm. The frequency domain
representation of the time signal is then used to simulate the origi-
nal time history of the wave elevation. With the wave trace de-
composed into harmonics and assuming linear superposition, it is
possible calculate the linear diffraction forces and also the non-
linear Froude-Krylov forces. Details of the procedure may be
found in Fonseca et al. (2001).
Figure 1 presents a comparison between the measured wave
elevation (symbols) and the simulated wave elevation (line) for a
history of 4 minutes, and 100 harmonics were used for the simu-
lation. If the objective is to assess the ship responses to the large
wave only, then a simulation of around 30 to 60 seconds is enough
to represent the transient effects of the ship responses to the waves
encountered before the large wave. Using smaller duration time
traces reduces the computational effort. The figure shows the
“freak” wave occurring at a time instant around t ⳱ 265 seconds.
The presented time history of wave elevation was measured on
a fixed point in space; it can be used to calculate the dynamic
responses of stationary vessels, such as FPSO ships. It can be
assumed, for instance, that this wave elevation is felt at midship.
It may also be interesting to use part of the wave record informa-
tion to calculate the wave-induced loads on advancing ships sub-
jected to particular events. As an example, it is interesting to
estimate the ship responses to the very large wave occurring at t ⳱
265 seconds. To do so, one has to start the simulation with the
advancing ship starting from a specific position in space and pass-
ing through the position of the wave sensor at the exact instant
when the wave crest occurs.
The methodology to produce the wave field that the ship en-
counters as it approaches the point in space where the big wave
appears is presented in Fonseca et al. (2001). It is based on the
wave’s dispersion relation. In fact, the wave field is the same as
the one corresponding to the simulation in Fig. 1. However, the
wave trace on the ship reference system is different.
This is illustrated in Fig. 2, where the simulated wave elevation
is represented on a reference system advancing at 10.36 m/s (ship
speed), that crosses the measurement point exactly at the instant
when the very large wave crest occurs. The symbols represent the
wave elevation measured at the point fixed in space, and the line
stands for the simulation in the ship reference system.
When the ship is considered to be advancing at different speeds,
the simulated time trace does not reproduce exactly the time trace
before and after the largest wave, but it reproduces the largest
wave well. Since sea states are random in nature, it is not critical
that the time trace before and after is precisely reproduced as long
JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH
Fig. 1 Comparison between measured (symbols) and simulated (line) wave elevations. A history of 4 minutes was Fourier analyzed, and 100
harmonics were used for simulation. From Fonseca et al. (2001)
as its statistical properties are well reproduced, as is indeed the
case.
4. Long-term predictions
The approach for calculating long-term cumulative probability
distributions of ship wave-induced responses is a well-defined and
accepted one. It was initially proposed by Fukuda (1967) and
applied by Guedes Soares and Moan (1991) among others. There
are various procedures for determining the functions needed for
the calculation, but the usual basic assumptions are the linearity of
the ship responses with respect to the exciting waves and the
Gaussian properties of the sea state. With these premises linear
spectral analysis may be applied to derive simple statistics of the
sea state and ship responses.
The first step in the calculation procedure is to determine the
response transfer function, or amplitude response as a function of
the wave frequency. Then the response spectrum SR(␻) is obtained
from the input wave spectrum Sw(␻) and the transfer function
H(␻):
SR共␻兲 = Sw共␻兲|H共␻兲|2 (6)
The sea state is modeled as a stationary, zero mean, Gaussian
process, and because the responses are linear, the response process
will be described by the same model. This together with the as-
sumption of a narrow band process implies that a Rayleigh dis-
tribution describes the amplitudes or the peaks of the processes
(Longuet-Higgins 1952), according to which the probability of
exceeding the level r is given by:
冉 冊
r2
QS共r兲 = exp − (7)
2␴2
Fig. 2 Measured wave time trace (symbols) and simulated wave elevation represented on the ship reference system with constant forward speed
(line). From Fonseca et al. (2001)
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where ␴2 is the variance of the process. The variance can be
obtained from the spectrum by integration:
兰 S共␻兲d␻
⬁
␴2 = (8)
0
which is applicable to both the input and the response spectrum.
If the predictions are made for periods of longer duration, then
the sea state cannot be considered stationary and the solution is to
consider a succession of periods of stationary sea states during
which the process is defined by an uncertain value of the variance.
Therefore, the Rayleigh distribution becomes conditioned on the
value of the variance, and the marginal distribution must be ob-
tained by integrating over all values of the variance, weighted by
their probability density function f(␴). Thus, the probability of
exceeding an amplitude r in a long term is given by (Fukuda 1967,
Guedes Soares & Moan 1991):
兰 Q 共r|␴兲 f 共␴兲d␴
⬁
QL共r兲 = S (9)
0
where QS is the short-term Rayleigh distribution given by (7).
The kernel in (9) has been modified to account for the fact that,
when the time spent in each sea state is equal but the average
response period is different, a ship will get a different number of
cycles in different sea states. This is achieved by multiplying the
original kernel with the following condition-dependent weighing
factor:
T2
w= (10)
T2|␴
where the global average response period, T2, is given by:
JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH 35
 Fig. 3 Body lines of the S-175 containership

T2 = 冉兰 ␴
1
T2|␴
f 共␴兲d␴ 冊 (11)
5. Calculation example

5.1. Structural loads induced by the abnormal wave

and the condition average response is

冑
This section presents results from time domain simulations of
m0 the motions and structural loads on a containership advancing in
T2|␴ = 2␲ . head waves. The excitation is given by deterministic wave traces
m2
that include abnormal waves. Calculations are performed for the
In order to introduce the nonlinear asymmetry of the vertical bend- well-known S-175 containership. Figure 3 shows the ship body
ing moment on the calculation procedure, Guedes Soares (1993) lines, and Table 1 lists the main particulars.
and Guedes Soares and Schellin (1996) proposed a generalization The first results correspond to the ship without advance speed in
of the former method. Their method uses form functions that long crested waves corresponding to the wave trace presented in
transform the linear transfer functions to “pseudo nonlinear trans- Fig. 1. The wave elevation from Fig. 1 is imposed at the longitu-
fer functions” associated with different sea states. The form func- dinal position of the ship center of gravity (nearly midship). Figure
tion depends on the wave amplitude and frequency and may be 4 presents simulations of the wave elevation (␨) at the center of
represented by (Guedes Soares & Schellin 1996): gravity (CG), heave (␰3), pitch (␰5), relative motion at the forward
␸NL共␻, Hs兲 = ␸1共␻兲 ⭈ ␸2共HS兲 (12) perpendicular (␰r), vertical shear force (V3), and vertical bending
moment (M5) at midship.
The corrected transfer function, or the “pseudo nonlinear transfer This simulation was performed for a long interval of time, 20
function,” becomes: minutes, and 300 harmonics were used to reconstruct the wave
trace and therefore to calculate the exciting forces. In fact, the 300
H共␻, HS兲 = ␸NLH共␻兲 (13) harmonics result from a Fourier analysis of 32 minutes that cor-
respond to 20 minutes of record plus 12 minutes of zeros, which
and the response spectrum accounting for the nonlinear effects is: results in the nearest 2n number of points necessary to apply the
FFT.
SR共␻,Hs兲 = Sw共␻兲 ⭈ H2共␻, Hs兲 (14) To better assess the importance of nonlinear effects, nonlinear
simulations (continuous lines) are plotted together with corre-
From this point on, the method to calculate short-term and long-
term distributions is the same as presented before.
In Guedes Soares and Schellin (1996) the “nonlinear transfer Table 1 Main particulars of the S-175 containership
functions” were calculated by correcting frequency domain results
by the nonlinear effects of changing restoring forces, but another Length between perpendiculars Lpp (m) 175.0
possibility is to calculate “nonlinear transfer functions” for a range Beam B (m) 25.40
of wave amplitudes using a time domain code and then calculate Depth D (m) 15.40
the response spectra for all sea states in the scatter diagram using Draft T (m) 9.50
(14). This procedure has been used by Guedes Soares et al. Displacement ⌬ (ton) 24,742
Longitudinal position of CG LCG (m) −2.43
(2006b) to calculate the design wave bending moment on an FPSO
Block coefficient Cb 0.572
unit and is applied here also to calculate the expected maximum
Pitch radius of gyr. Kyy/Lpp 0.24
bending moment on a containership during its operational lifetime.

36 MARCH 2008 JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH

Fig. 4 Simulation of vertical responses in head long crested waves. Fn = 0, significant wave height of 11.4 m, and zero upcrossing mean wave
period of 11.3 seconds. From Fonseca et al. (2001)

MARCH 2008 JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH 37

Fig. 5 Simulation of vertical responses in head long crested waves. Fn = 0.16, significant wave height of 11.4 m, and zero upcrossing mean wave
period of 11.3 seconds

38 MARCH 2008 JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH

 Fig. 6 Sequence of ship position and wave profile (Fn = 0.16)
sponding linear simulations (dashed lines). The graphs show
clearly that the largest responses occur when the ship encounters
the large wave (around t ⳱ 265 seconds). One observes also that
the nonlinear asymmetry of the vertical motions is relatively
small, but in particular the vertical bending moment is highly
nonlinear since the nonlinear sagging peaks (negative) are much
larger than the corresponding linear ones.
The interest of the methodology presented here is to calculate
the ship’s responses and, in particular, the structural loads induced
by predefined wave traces that include abnormal waves. In this
case relatively short simulations are required. Figure 5 presents the
MARCH 2008
results from a simulation in a long crested wave field correspond-
ing to 4 minutes of the wave trace presented before (Fig. 1). The
4 minute wave trace includes the abnormal wave. The number of
harmonics used to represent the wave field is 80, which results in
a very accurate numerical wave elevation since the wave trace is
relatively short. The ship advances in head waves, with a reduced
speed of 13 knots, and it is forced to pass through the point of
wave measurement in space at the instant when the very large
wave crest occurs. The symbols in Fig. 5 are the same as presented
before. Additionally, the green water on deck vertical force per
meter at the forward perpendicular is included and represented by
JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH 39
 Fig. 7 Simulated wave traces at one point fixed in space and with different wave slopes
Fig. 8 Simulation of wave elevation contours (spatial distribution). Three wave slopes of the large wave are considered.
fgw. Continuous lines represent nonlinear simulated results of the
ship responses, and dashed lines stand for linear results.
The graphs show that the ship motions are slightly nonlinear
around the abnormal wave, since the nonlinear simulations present
larger peaks compared to the linear ones. The forces due to water
on deck at the forward perpendicular reach a very large value,
which is higher than 2,000 kN/m. This occurs when the ship
immerses the bow deeply into the water after the passing through
the large wave. The estimated height of water on deck is close to
15 m at the forward perpendicular.
It is also observed that the vertical bending moment at midship
is highly asymmetric, with the largest nonlinear sagging peak
showing magnitudes approximately three times larger than the
corresponding linear ones. This peak occurs when the ship im-
merses the bow after encountering the large crest. Finally, it is
interesting to note that the water on deck vertical forces tends to
reduce the sagging moment, since these forces act downward to
produce a hogging moment. However, in the case of the largest
sagging moment, the green water forces occur slightly later than
the sagging peak; thus, they do not contribute to reducing the
maximum sagging moment.
Figure 6 presents a sequence of the ship position and wave
profile as the ship encounters the abnormal wave and passes
through it. The sequence clearly shows that the largest relative
motions at the bow do not occur when the bow encounters the
abnormal wave. Consequently, the largest structural loads do not
occur at this instant either, as can be observed in the graphs of Fig.
5. The largest relative motions occur approximately at t ⳱ 169
seconds, when the large crest is at the stern.
It is interesting to note that although the wave profile at the time
instant when the maximum wave elevation was measured is not
extremely steep (t ⳱ 164.1 seconds in Fig. 6), in the instants
40 MARCH 2008
before the wave is extremely steep (t ⳱ 162 seconds). This is in
accordance with the reports from some captains who often say that
such abnormal waves look like big walls of water.
It is of interest to verify if the numerical model is sensitive to
different slopes of the large waves, making it possible to deter-
mine if the vertical responses are significantly different for waves
with the same height but different slopes. In order to do this, the
measured wave record was modified around the large wave crest,
between t ⳱ 140 seconds and t ⳱180 seconds, shortening and
also enlarging the wave period. This resulted in modified large
wave crests, with respectively increased and decreased wave
slopes, but the same wave height. Compared to the original wave
record, the slope was varied plus and minus 40%. The wave slopes
are defined here as the ratio between the wave height (vertical
distance between the large crest and the previous trough) and the
horizontal distance between the large crest and the previous
trough. The three wave slopes are 0.19, 0.32, and 0.44.
The three simulated wave elevations, at one fixed point in
space, are presented in Fig. 7, where the solid line represents the
simulation of the original record and the dashed line with large
segments stands for the simulation with decreased wave slope.
The dashed line with small segments represents the simulation
with increased slope. It is clear that before t ⳱140 seconds all
simulations are coincident and after t ⳱ 180 seconds the curves
are similar but affected by phase shifts.
The different wave slopes are more clearly observed in Fig. 8,
which presents the simulated wave contours in space along the
direction of propagation of the assumed long crested waves, at the
instant when the large wave crest occurs. The origin of the x axis
is coincident with the measurement point.
Figure 9 presents the vertical ship responses to these three
waves, where correspondence between different lines and wave
JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH
Fig. 9 Simulation of vertical responses in head long crested waves. Comparison of results for three different wave slopes of the large wave. Fn
= 0.16, significant wave height of 11.4 m, and zero upcrossing mean wave period of 11.3 seconds
slopes is the same as described before for the wave elevations. The
results show that heave and pitch motions are sensitive to the wave
slope, as the ship tends to follow more the wave for longer wave
lengths. The relative motions at the bow also feel the differences
between the wave slopes, and the consequence is different water
on deck forces for different wave slopes. Finally, the vertical
bending moment at midship also presents large differences regard-
ing the sagging peaks for the three waves. The resulting values are
presented in Table 2.
Besides large global structural loads, very steep waves, or
nearly vertical waves, may induce slamming type loads on the ship
sides or on the bow above the waterline, or even on the ship
superstructure and equipment on the deck. Presently, the applied
numerical method is not able to represent such type of loads.
5.2. Comparisons with design wave bending moments
It is of interest to assess the possibility of using the loads in-
duced by very rare abnormal waves as an additional criterion in
MARCH 2008
the design of ships. With this idea in mind, it is interesting to
compare the maximum structural loads induced by the abnormal
wave with those resulting from long-term predictions and also
with the values from classification society rules. Expected maxi-
mum wave bending moments were calculated using the linear and
nonlinear long-term prediction methods presented in section 4.
The ship speed is the same as used for the time domain simula-
tions, V ⳱ 13 knots. The wave statistics of the North Atlantic are
represented by a scatter diagram prepared by Guedes Soares
(1996).
Figure 10 presents the probability of exceedance of the vertical
bending moment at midship calculated by the long-term proce-
dures. The continuous and dashed lines represent, respectively,
linear and nonlinear long-term predictions. The nonlinear long-
term predictions correspond to pseudo transfer functions, defined
by the sagging peaks, and depend on the wave amplitude. The
horizontal dashed line represents the probability level of 10−8,
which corresponds approximately to an operational life of 20
years. The graph includes also the maximum sagging and hogging
JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH 41
 Figure 9 (continued)

peaks obtained from the simulations in the measured abnormal
wave (vertical lines with notation MAW), together with the mini-
mum rule wave bending moments as required by the International
Association of Classification Societies (IACS). The numerical val-
ues of the maximum bending moments are presented in Table 3.
The results show that the bending moment predicted by the
linear long-term calculations for an exceedance probability of 10−8
is 48% higher than the value given by the rules for sagging. The
nonlinear long-term predictions give a sagging moment 2.7 times
larger than the rule value. Concerning the time domain simulation
in the measured abnormal wave, the maximum nonlinear sagging
moment is around 2.1 times larger than the rules one.

Table 2 Maximum bending moment sagging and hogging peaks 6. Conclusions

around the abnormal wave (Fn = 0.16)
The paper considers the possibility of using a predefined time
Sagging Hogging series of wave elevation to calculate global wave-induced struc-
Sagging Hogging Relative Relative tural loads on ships. The procedure can be used as an additional
(MNm) (MNm) Increase Increase design criteria aimed at considering the effects of accidental situ-
ations associated with abnormal waves.
−40% slope 1,591.3 622.77 −27% −7.9%
A method to calculate the ship responses to a deterministic and
Measured abnormal wave 2,179.6 675.84 0 0
+40% slope 1,759.9 577.79 −19.3% −14.5%
irregular wave time series is described. The method, together with
a time domain code, is applied to calculate the nonlinear responses

42 MARCH 2008 JOURNAL OF SHIP RESEARCH

 Fig. 10 Comparison of wave-induced bending moment at midship (Fn = 0.25)

of a containership to a 20-minute wave trace measured in the been obtained and a summary of the main conclusions from those
Central North Sea during a storm. This is an interesting wave trace results can be found in Guedes Soares et al. (2006a).
because it includes a very large wave crest, which corresponds to
a wave height of approximately 26 meters.
Acknowledgments
The results show that the vertical motions are weakly nonlinear,
while the vertical bending moment at midship has strong nonlinear This work has been performed in the scope of the research
characteristics since the sagging peaks are much larger than the project Rogue Waves—Forecast and Impact on Marine Structures
hogging peaks, and also larger than the corresponding linear sag- (MAXWAVE), partially funded by the European Commission,
ging peaks. under the program Energy, Environment and Sustainable Devel-
The influence of the wave slope on the vertical responses was opment (contract no. EVK3:2000–00544). Work of the third au-
investigated. It was observed that the wave slope affects the heave thor has been financed by the Portuguese Foundation for Science
and pitch motions, since the ship tends to follow the motion of the and Technology (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia) under
longer waves. The vertical bending moment depends on the rela- contract SFRH/BD/10527/2002.
tive motions, and it was observed that around the large wave crest
the resulting bending moment for different wave slopes is differ-
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