Ship Dynamics

SEAKEEPING CRITERIA
 Seakeeping Performance Assessment
• Mission
• Port to Port Transportation of Goods or people
• Military Missions
• Commercial Missions such as fishing, Oil Drilling,etc
• Environment
• Quantified as Sea State (H1/3 & Tm)
• Ship Responses
• Both absolute and relative
• Seakeeping Performance Criteria
 Seakeeping Performance Index (SPI)
• SPI-1
• Mission Effectiveness: This is the fraction of time that a given ship in a given
condition of loading can perform a specified military or commercial mission {or mix
of missions), for a predetermined profile of ship speeds and headings in a specified
ocean area and season.
• SPI-2
• SPI-2 is defined as transit time index, which is the ideal time that a ship needs for a
transit in calm water between two or more specified ports divided by the actual time
that the ship would require to travel between the same two ports in seas
appropriate to a specified season or seasons. For a designated minimum-distance
route SPI-2 is also the ratio of the average speed of that ship on that route in the
designated seas to the calm water speed of that ship in the same condition of
loading and with the same bottom fouling. This index is called the expected speed
fraction.
 SPI -1
• SPI-1 is directly useful in assessing the operational worth of the many
military ships, and some commercial ships—such as cruise ships—
whose primary missions are conducted and completed at sea.
Assuming that a correct set of seakeeping performance criteria and
their prescribed limiting values are available for each particular ship
mission and that the probabilities of occurrence of wave conditions in
the desired ocean areas and over the desired time periods are known,
SPI-1 can be determined.
• We must calculate the percent of time (i.e., probability) that the
actual values of various ship response never exceed the prescribed
values of the applicable performance criteria. This percent of time,
SPI-1, is used directly in judging the operational worth of a ship.
 Involuntary Speed Reductions
• Available power
• Characteristics of the propulsion plant
• Propulsor's interaction with the waves and the hull of the ship.
• Required power is a function of speed
• Depends on Sea State, Ship Heading, Ship Size and Configuration.
• Increase in required power in rough weather
• attributable mainly to added drag in a seaway.
• Reduction in available power in rough water
• Drop in power plant output under overload
• Effectof ship motions in reducing propulsive efficiency.
• The reductions in ship speed attributable to both reduced available power
and increased required power are called involuntary speed reductions
because they occur whether the ship captain wants them to occur or not.
Power in Head waves for Frigate

Speed Loss at Constant Power for

Frigate in Head Waves
 Voluntary Speed Reductions
• These speed reductions brought about by a decision of the Captain
and are not imposed by factors like added drag or decreased
propulsive efficiency over which he has no control.
• As the sea state severity increases the amplitudes of motion, even with active
motion stabilizers, the motions of the ship will become so severe that the
captain fears for the ability of his crew to carry out their function, for the
comfort of his passengers or for possible damage to the ship or its systems
and its payload.
• In the case of military ships, the motions may become so severe that one or
more ship functions cannot be performed. Vital operational capabilities, like
launch and recovery of aircraft, become very hazardous, or detection of other
ships by means of sonar may become impossible.
 Seakeeping Performance Index vis-a-vis
Seakeeping Performance Criteria
• In general usage, the words index and criterion have similar meanings.
But in the literature on seakeeping, a clear distinction has gradually
taken form. The term seakeeping performance index, is used here as
an overall statistical measure of the degradation of seaway
performance of a total ship system over a period of time.
• Seakeeping performance criterion refers to a specific aspect of ship
response to a seaway (amplitude of motion, individual event or
frequency of occurrence of events), each of which—if severe
enough—can degrade the performance of one or more of the
elements of a total ship system to an unacceptable level.
 Seakeeping Performance Criteria
• Amplitudes of motion, such as absolute displacements and roll, pitch,
and yaw angles of the ship.
• Absolute vertical, transverse, and longitudinal velocities and
accelerations of points at selected locations on the ship with respect
to the earth.
• Relative vertical displacements and velocities of points at selected
locations on the platform with respect to the ocean surface at these
locations.
• Relative motions between platform and aircraft.
 Seakeeping Performance Criteria
• Absolute Motion of Amplitude
• Roll Angle
• Pitch Angle
• Vertical Displacement of points on Flight Deck
• Absolute Velocities and Accelerations
• Vertical Acceleration
• Lateral Acceleration
• Motion Sickness Incidence (MSI)
• Slam Acceleration
• Motions Relative to Sea
• Frequency of Slamming
• Frequency of Emergence of Sonar Dome
• Frequency of Deck Wetness
• Frequency of propeller emergence
• Motions Relative to Aircraft
• Vertical Velocity of aircraft relative to flight deck
 Absolute Motion of Amplitude
• RMS Roll Angle
• 9.6 deg to 1.5 deg
• Motion Sickness or Nausea
• Personnel Effectiveness (~ 9.6 deg)
• Combat Effectiveness (~ 1.5 deg)
• Deck Handling, Helicopter Launch and Recovery (2.5 ~ 3.2 deg)
• RMS Pitch Angle
• 1.5 deg to 2.4 deg
• Replenishment at Sea (~ 2.4 Deg)
• Similar to Roll Angle
• RMS Vertical Displacement
• 0.1 to 0.2 m
• Flight Deck crew to handle helicopters before launch and after recovery
 Absolute Velocities and Accelerations
• RMS Vertical & Lateral Accelerations
• 0.1 g to 0.2 g
• Personnel Fatigue and reduced task proficiency.
• Motion Sickness Incidence
• defined as the percent of individuals who would become physically ill if
subjected to motions of prescribed characteristics for a given time interval t 1.

• 20 % in 2 hours
 Motions Relative to Sea
• Slamming Frequency
• 12-30 slams per hour
• Frequency of Sonar Dome Emergence
• Minimum Ping interval of 30 sec for sonar to detect returning target echo.
• 120 emergences per hour
• Deck Wetness Frequency
• 30 wetnesses per hour
• Propeller Emergence
• 25 propeller emergences per 100 ship oscillations.
• RMS Relative Vertical Velocity
• 1.83 m/s for Helo operations
 Motion Sickness Incidence (MSI)
• The initial studies regarding the motion effects on humans, sponsored
by the US Navy in the early 1970's, were carried out by O’Hanlon and
McCauley (1974), who conducted a series of experiments on over 500
subjects, exposed to the effects of various combinations of motion
frequencies and magnitudes up to two hours, finding that the main
sickness cause is the vertical component of the motion.
• They came up with a Mathematical Model namely ‘Motion Sickness
Incidence’ MSI.
 Motion Sickness Incidence
• Correlation between MSI and vertical acceleration
• Roll and pitch motions, even if not provoking sickness in themselves,
when combined with heave, may produce more seasickness than
predicted by classical models.
• The main parameter to estimate the passenger comfort onboard is
the ship vertical acceleration, combined with both roll and pitch
motions. The Motion Sickness Incidence (MSI) is defined as the
percentage of passengers who become seasick after 2 hours of
exposure to a certain motion.
 Motion Sickness Incidence

where, μMSI is defined as

Alternatively, Lyold (1998) gave the following,

Where m2 and m4 are 2nd and 4th spectral moments of the ship vertical motion spectrum Sz (ωe)
as a function of the encounter frequency ωe .
 Speed Polar Plots of Ship Responses
• A short-term evaluation of ship performance can be obtained by
making systematic calculations of the various responses at different
speeds and headings in specific sea conditions, as defined by their
directional sea spectra.
• Results can then be plotted on the basis of speed. For any specific set
of performance criteria, the speeds at which the criteria will be met
can then be determined for any combination of sea state and ship
heading.
 Steps in Obtaining SPI-1
• Obtain Speed Polar Plots at various Sea states.
• Seakeeping Operating Envelope (SOE).
• Operability Index
• Seakeeping Performance Index
 Boundary of the operable regime of speeds and
headings, shown unshaded in Fig (for the sonar
search function), is called the Seakeeping
Operating Envelope (SOE) (Comstock, et al
1980). Roughly speaking, the bigger the
unshaded area within the SOE the better the
seakeeping performance of the ship.

The fraction of time the ship is able to perform its stated

function at a particular speed and sea state can be
obtained, assuming equal probability of all headings,
by taking the ratio of the total angle subtended by
the unshaded arcs around any constant-speed circle to
360 deg. Thus at a speed of 10 knots the designated
sonar search function will not be constrained in Sea
State 6 by seakeeping considerations in about 39
percent of all possible ship-wave heading angles; at
15 knots this increases to 42 percent and at all
speeds between 20 to 29 knots to about 45 percent.
These values correspond to Operability Index (OI),
based on the assumption that all possible heading angles
are equally probably for the sonar search function.
 Calculation of SPI-1
• The Mission Effectiveness Index, SPI-1, is computed by summing the
OI values for the ship function weighted by the probabilities, Ps
(expected frequency of occurrence), of the sea state conditions in
which that function is to be carried out.
SPI-1= 𝜮𝜮 𝑶𝑶𝑶𝑶 𝑿𝑿 𝑷𝑷𝒔𝒔

• SPI-1 has very important quantitative operational significance. Its

value is the probability or expected fraction of total time that the
operational mission for which the ship was designed can be
performed while in its operating area, subject to the constraints
imposed by the seaway on the performance of the ship and its
systems.