The effect of berthed ship size and berth occupancy on berthed ship-passing ship interaction forces and moments

This paper deals with the effect of berthed ship size and berth occupancy arrangement on the interaction forces and moments induced by a passing ship in shallow water. A series of scale model experiments were conducted with the berthed ship represented by a model constrained in surge, sway and yaw to enable the measurement of the surge force, sway force and yaw moment. The berthed ship size, berthed ship locations and passing ship speed were varied during the test program. The effect of the berthed ship size was obtained by conducting tests using three scale ship models to represent the berthed ships of different lengths and beams. The berthed and passing ships were kept at a constant static under keel clearance and water depth. The effect of berth occupancy was obtained by conducting tests with different arrangements of berthed ships. A selection of the results is presented, and the influence of the important parameters on the forces and moment on the berthed ship are discussed. The influence of the berthed ship size and the berth occupancy on the magnitude of the peaks of the interaction forces and moments was quantified, and results presented. Selected experimental time domain trace results are compared to those obtained using an empirical prediction technique which was modified to match the magnitude of the experimental forces and moments.