Ship-to-ship interactions can induce significant vertical motions, increasing grounding risks. Experimental data on this phenomenon remain scarce, so numerical methods could provide an alternative to assess these risks. A numerical method based on slender-body theory was implemented by Gourlay (2009), who used a linear superposition of ship-bound pressure fields in open water to calculate ship sinkage and trim during ship-to-ship interactions. A Fourier solution of these pressure fields was implemented in the computer code SlenderFlow (SF). In this paper, Gourlay’s superposition method was implemented using SF and validated with experimental data obtained at Flanders Hydraulics (FH). The results showed that SF captures qualitative trends, but its predictions underestimate the peak magnitudes of the unsteady sinkages. This discrepancy is attributed to model simplifications, such as the linearization of the hull and free-surface boundary conditions, but also the superposition of separate pressure fields is questioned.

Title : Volume : Issue : Pagination : 124-140