Dynamic Analysis of Modular Floating Structures

Community-scale modular floating structures (MFS) offer a sustainable alternative over traditional land reclamation for the expansion of coastal megalopolises in the context of climate change adaptation. While floating structures are widely adopted by the offshore hydrocarbon industry, large-scale pontoons designed for permanent human habitation have rarely progressed beyond architectural speculation. The lack of guidelines accessible to structural engineers on the analysis of floating structures further complicates their implementation.

This research formulates and evaluates simplified analytical solutions readily accessible for the dynamic analysis of MFS subject to regular or irregular waves. Numerical simulations comprising smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) are leveraged to benchmark closed-form expressions for the response amplitude operators (RAO) pertaining to the translational and rotational motions of a conventional pontoon. Ultimately, this work represents a significant step towards the realization of MFS for urban expansion by providing structural engineers with a practical methodology for the dynamic analysis of floating structures as a precursor to detailed computational modeling.

Relevant Publications

Wang, S. (2023). Simplified analytical solutions to the yaw dynamics of modular floating structures. Ocean Engineering, 276

Wang, S. (2022). Analytical solutions for the dynamic analysis of a modular floating structure for urban expansion. Ocean Engineering, 266

Wang, S. (2022). SPH and analytical modeling of an urban floating structure for coastal expansion. Proceedings of 37th Conference on Coastal Engineering, Sydney, Australia