FLOATING CITIES & OCEAN ENGINEERING

Global Survey of Floating Houses

We evaluate residential floating systems through the framework of blue urbanism, comparing engineered and vernacular approaches across four dimensions: ecological integration, socio-economic accessibility, infrastructure integration, and structural resilience and adaptability. Drawing on 68 documented floating and amphibious housing examples worldwide, nine representative case studies are assessed using a transparent classification of source type and evidence strength. The findings suggest that the future viability of floating housing depends less on proving technical feasibility than on integrating structural, ecological, infrastructural, and socioeconomic performance within a unified engineering framework.

Select Publications

Maldar, N., Wang, A., Wang, S. (2026). Buoying urban futures: A critical review of engineered and vernacular floating houses for sustainable development and climate adaptation. Journal of Building Engineering, 128

Breaking Wave Dynamics of Floating Wind Turbines

This research leverages smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) to explore the structural and hydrodynamic response of floating offshore wind turbines (FOWT) subject to impulsive breaking waves. The SPH formulation was first validated against breaking wave impact on a model tension leg platform (TLP) which demonstrated good consistency with experimental results. Following validation, wave focusing was utilized to generate both breaking and nonbreaking extreme waves impacting a moored semi-submersible FOWT at full scale. Impulsive forces and accelerations resulting from the plunging breaker were observed to exceed that of nonbreaking waves by up to 70% and 230%, respectively, and were highly sensitive to the wave impingement location relative to the FOWT.

Select Publications

Wang, S., Chuang, W.-L. (2025). SPH Analysis of Extreme Wave Directionality on the Dynamics of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines. Proceedings of the 19th SPHERIC World Conference, Barcelona, Spain

Wang, S., Chuang, W.-L. (2025). Dynamic analysis of breaking wave impact on a floating offshore wind turbine via smoothed particle hydrodynamics. Marine Structures, 100

Habitability of Floating Cities

We leverage head-mounted display (HMD)-based virtual reality (VR) to provide users with a visually immersive experience depicting life on a floating city. Beyond the recreation of realistic interior spaces within a floating building, the virtual environment can oscillate in accordance with simulated building motions excited by different sea states. The immersive VR experience will help designers and prospective occupants decide whether such vibrations will be acceptable for general habitation per their individual requirements. Ultimately, we present a widely accessible communication and education tool for the replication of complex environmental conditions to support stakeholder decision making concerning unprecedented infrastructure solutions for climate adaptation.

Select Publications

Wang, S., Han, B. (2024). Floating cities for climate change adaptation: exploring motion perception thresholds via immersive virtual reality. Proceedings of 38th Conference on Coastal Engineering, Rome, Italy

Wang, S., Han, B. (2023). Simulating Structural Motions of Floating Cities in an Immersive Virtual Reality Environment. ASCE International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering (i3CE 2023), Oregon State University, Oregon

Wang, S., Han, B. (2023). Immersive Virtual Reality as a Communication Tool towards the Development of Floating Cities for Climate Adaptation. At What Point Managed Retreat?: Habitability and Mobility in an Era of Climate Change, Columbia University, New York

Analytical Dynamics of Modular Floating Structures

Modular floating structures (MFS) offer a sustainable pathway towards the expansion of coastal cities in adaptation to climate change. It is therefore necessary to develop analytical methods easily accessible to architects or structural engineers for the rapid prototyping of MFS designs. This work leveraged Airy wave theory to develop closed-form expressions describing the rigid body dynamics of symmetrically loaded rectangular pontoons across all six degrees of freedom (DOF) excited by surface waves approaching from any arbitrary direction. Its outcomes will enable a more streamlined approach for the dynamic analysis of compliant floating bodies to supplement detailed modeling efforts via numerical methods.

Select Publications

Wang, S. (2025). Derivation of 3D dynamics for rigid floating structures under directional wave excitation. Sustainable Marine Structures, 7 (1), 35–51

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