Comparison of slamming and whipping loads by fully coupled hydroelastic analysis and experimental measurement

This paper proposes a numerical method for analyzing whipping using a fully coupled hydroelastic model. The numerical analysis method utilizes a 3-D Rankine panel method, 1-D/3-D finite element methods, and a 2-D generalized Wagner model, which are strongly coupled in the time domain. The computational results were compared with those of a model test of an 18000-TEU containership. The slamming pressures and whipping responses to regular waves for bow flare and stern slamming were compared. Furthermore, the slamming pressure was decomposed into its dynamic and static components. The numerical and experimental models produced similar results. In addition, the effects of the discretization and geometric approximation of the 2-D slamming sections were investigated. •A fully coupled numerical model is introduced for simulating slamming–whipping of an 18000-TEU containership.•The computational result showed good agreement with the experimental result in terms of slamming pressure and VBM.•An enough number of sections are required near the stern to consider the effect of stern slamming.•It is observed that slamming load suppressed the pitch motion in the present ship model.