Design and application of a virtual simulation-based ship seakeeping experimental system

Seakeeping experiment is an important way to verify the ship hydrodynamic performance and ensure the safety of ship navigation at sea. Traditional physical experiments for ship seakeeping performance have several shortcomings,including high model cost,long preparation time,limited availability of towing tanks,as well as the unstable experimental results,making it difficult to meet the rapidly evolving demands of the current shipbuilding of the current shipping market.To address the above problems,this study proposes a ship seakeeping experimental scheme based on virtual simulation technology and develops a corresponding system for application verification. A framework for the virtual simulation-based seakeeping experimental system is designed,forming a hierarchical system architecture consisting of a basic support layer,a database and model library system,a simulation system support platform,and a system application platform. Virtual simulation models of multiple ship types,experimental equipment models and experimental environment models are constructed and rendered. On the basis,a virtual simulation experiment platform is built,and an operator-oriented interactive interface is developed. The Runge-Kutta method is applied to solve the ship motion equations,and ship seakeeping motion calculation and post-processing programs are independently developed to calculate key parameters such as roll angle and roll angular velocity in real time,thereby providing backend data support for virtual simulation-based ship seakeeping experiments. A bidirectional data interface is developed to support the input of platform parameters,the calling and transmission of calculation results,and the reproduction of simulation results. This interface drives the real-time motion of ship models in the virtual environment and enables the simulation of the entire seakeeping experimental process. A Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) is taken as an example to verify the application of the experimental system,and the experimental data is compared and analyzed. The results indicate that the proposed experimental system can accurately simulate the ship seakeeping motion process and s provide a reliable virtual simulation experimental platform for new ship design,performance optimization,ship operation,and seakeeping research.