https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.

1177/0954406211415200

752

Optimal shape design of a floating body for

minimal water wave forces
D Lee* and I Son
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Dongeui University, Busanjin-gu, Busan, Korea

The manuscript was received on 17 April 2011 and was accepted after revision for publication on 7 June 2011.

DOI: 10.1177/0954406211415200

Abstract: Water waves are the most significant excitation source for floating vessels. The motion
of floating vessels needs to be stable against a random water wave environment. In this study, the
authors try to find an optimal shape for a floating body that gives minimal water wave excitation
forces for a given water wave over a predefined frequency band. First, we propose a shape opti-
mization formulation with a displacement constraint of which the objective function is to min-
imize water–structure interaction forces. For the calculation of water wave forces, high-order
boundary-element analysis software is developed under an assumption of linear hydrodynamic
potential theory. The analysis software is plugged into an optimization toolbox in MATLAB soft-
ware in order to find the optimum under-water shape of the floating body. Two numerical exam-
ples are introduced to show the validity of the proposed optimization formulation: hemisphere
and pontoon problems. Various shapes that give minimal heave and/or surge water-excitation
forces are sought.

Keywords: optimal shape design, water wave, boundary-element method, hydrodynamic force

1 INTRODUCTION Therefore, the floating body itself should be designed

Water–structure interaction is very important for
floating structures on the ocean surface. Floating
structures undergo harmonic motion due to water
wave forces under relatively small incident wave
amplitudes. Recently, the mobile harbour concept,
which can be considered as a floating body under
operational conditions has been proposed. Since
the main role of the mobile harbour is to load and
unload containers on the ocean surface, the stability
of the structure is extremely important. To maintain
the stability of a floating body on stochastic waves of
ocean surface, several devices, such as anti-roll tanks
and active control systems, have been considered as
prototypes [1, 2]. However, these devices can stand
firmer on an intrinsically stable floating body.
*Corresponding author. Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Dongeui University, 995 Eomgwangno, Busanjin-gu, Busan, 614-
714, Korea.
email: dooho@deu.ac.kr
to be as stable as possible. This research study aims to
find the optimal shape of a floating body under excit-
ing water wave loads. The major external force on a
floating body comes from water waves. So, the min-
imization of external forces due to water waves will
result in the minimal motion of the floating structure.
However, the water wave forces are dependent
upon the shape of structure, which makes the opti-
mal-shape-finding problem very difficult; we need a
mathematical programming technique to solve the
various problems in this situation.
Linear potential theory gives an efficient method to
calculate hydrodynamic loadings that solves the
wave diffraction and radiation problems [3]. To cal-
culate hydrodynamic loadings of a floating body
due to water waves, the boundary-element method
(BEM) is widely used because of the unbounded
domain of the problem [4]. First Hess and Smith [5]
introduced the constant panel method to solve the
incompressible potential flow for arbitrary three-
dimensional floating bodies. The higher order BEM

Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science

 Optimal shape design
was investigated by Liu et al. [6], Taylor and Chau [7],
and Teng and Taylor [8], and was found to have
superior performance in terms of accuracy and effi-
ciency compared to the constant panel method.
Maniar [9] used a B-spline basis function to represent
both the geometry and the potentials, and Kim and
Shin [10] introduced the NURBS panel in their
formulation.
Optimization problems for a floating body on
water have been only rarely found because of the
complicated hydrodynamic analysis and large com-
putation effort. Kagemoto [11] identified a cylinder
array that gives minimal drift force in head seas.
Clauss and Birk [12] proposed a general optimiza-
tion formulation for offshore structures and applied
it to various offshore structures such as a tension-
leg platform. They used WAMIT software [13] for
hydrodynamic analysis; this software is based on
potential theory and the panel method. They and
their colleagues also extended their results to
design automation and multiobjectives to global
optimization problems [12, 14–17]. Percival et al.
[18] optimized ship hull forms for minimal calm-
water drag with a simple computational fluid
dynamics (CFD) tool. Tahara et al. [19] integrated
computer-aided design (CAD), CFD, and a multiob-
jective optimizer to obtain the stern form of a
tanker. Damaren [20] investigated an optimization
problem of a thin floating plate to maximize the
damping coefficient using variational formulation
and analytic sensitivity expressions. Elchahal et al.
[21] proposed a shape design formulation of float-
ing breakwaters to reduce the structural weight of
a breakwater under hydrodynamic and structural
constraints. Recently, Grigoropoulos and Chalkias
[22] presented a multiobjective evolutionary opti-
mization methodology for the hull form in calm
and rough water using the Rankin source panel
method. Zalek et al. [23] also treated a trade-off
problem between calm-water resistance and
seakeeping using the numerically approximated
Pareto front. Campana et al. [24] discussed the
design sensitivity analysis methods in the ship
hydrodynamic design.
In spite of many researches for over the last few
decades, the shape optimization problem for a float-
ing body on water waves such as, for example, a
mobile harbour, a pontoon, and an offshore platform,
remains a challenging area. In this paper, an optimi-
zation problem for minimizing water wave forces of a
floating body is newly formulated. The optimization
formulation is applied to a simple hemisphere and
a pontoon-like structure. The optimum shapes for
minimum water–structure interaction force are
sought for various cases.
Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science
753
2 BOUNDARY-ELEMENT ANALYSIS FOR
HYDRODYNAMIC FORCES
First, we need to calculate the hydrodynamic forces
acting on the floating body; the BEM is a popular
method for this hydrodynamic force calculation. In
this section, a high-order BEM (HOBEM) to calculate
hydrodynamic forces is explained.
2.1. Hydrodynamics of a floating body
Consider a floating body on a water surface as shown
in Fig. 1. The floating body has zero forward speed
and an incident wave comes from the negative x-
direction to the positive x-direction. We assume that
the fluid is inviscid, incompressible, and irrotational.
Then, there exists a velocity potential such that
ðx, y, z, t Þ ¼ ðx, y, zÞei!t ð1Þ
where t is time, ! is angular frequency, and  is the
harmonic component of the velocity potential.
The movement of the floating body radiates water
waves. We assume that the floating body undergoes
harmonic motion for each direction as follows
Xj ¼ j ei!t , j ¼ 1,    , 6, ð2Þ
where j is the amplitude of the harmonic motion in
the jth-direction. Considering the radiation of the
floating body and the diffraction of the incident
wave, the velocity potential can be expressed as [3]
" #
X
6
ðx,y,zÞ ¼ Re _
j j ðx,y,zÞ þ AA ðx,y,zÞ
j¼1
" #
X
6
¼ Re i!j j ðx,y,zÞ þ Að0 ðx,y,zÞ þ 7 ðx,y,zÞÞ
j¼1
ð3Þ
where Re denotes the real part of the argument,
A ¼ 0 þ 7 , A is the amplitude of the incident
Fig. 1 A floating body on the water surface
754 D Lee and I Son

f f
wave, and ’0 and ’7 are the velocity potentials for the Mjk and Cjk are defined as the added mass and damp-
incident and diffracted waves, respectively. ing coefficient, respectively. Similarly, the diffraction
With the symbols of the boundary as shown in force can be obtained as follows
Fig. 2, the velocity potentials should satisfy the Z
@j
Laplace equation such that Fj ¼ i! ð0 þ 7 Þ d
@n
B
r2 j ¼ 0 2 , j ¼ 0, 1,    , 7 ð4Þ Z ð8Þ
@j @0
¼ i! ð0 þ j Þd
We assume an infinite depth of water. Then, line- @n @n
B
arized boundary conditions for the velocity potentials
can be written as follows where Fj is the resulting force due to the incident
wave in the jth-direction. Finally, one can obtain
@j
 kj ¼ 0, on F , j ¼ 0, 1,    , 7 the system equations of motion for the floating
@z  
pffiffiffiffi @Re½j  body as
lim R þ kIm½j  ¼ 0 on
R!1 @R 6 
X h i h i h i
f f f
1 , j ¼ 1,    , 7 ð5Þ !2 Mjks þ Mjk  i! Cjks þ Cjk  Kjks þ Kjk
k¼1
@j
¼ nj , on B , j ¼ 1,    , 6  uk ¼ Fj , j ¼ 1,    , 6, ð9Þ
@n
f
@7 @0 where Mjks , Cjks , Kjks , and Kjk are the mass matrix of the
¼ , on B
@n @n structure, the damping matrix of the structure, the
where k is the wavenumber (¼!2/g), g is the gravita- stiffness matrix of the structure, and the restoring
tional acceleration, and n (¼n1, n2, n3) is the unit force coefficient due to the fluid, respectively. In
normal vector defined towards the structure. Here,
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi this study, the incident wave is represented as follows
ðn4 , n5 , n6 Þ ¼ ðx, y, zÞ  ðn1 , n2 , n3 Þ and R ¼ x 2 þ y 2
igA kz ikx cos iky sin 
Once the velocity potentials are known, the hydro- 0 ¼ e e ð10Þ
!
dynamic forces can be calculated from the Bernoulli
equation such that where  is the angle between the incident wave and
the x-axis.
pj ¼ i!j , j ¼ 1,    , 6, ð6Þ

where p is pressure and  is density. The resulting 2.2. The HOBEM

forces due to the radiation can be obtained by inte-
To calculate the velocity potentials that satisfy the
grating the pressure over the water–structure contact
governing equation, equation (4), and the boundary
boundary as follows
conditions, equation (5), a BEM is used because of its
Z
2 @j f f simplicity in preprocessing and ease in treating the
Fjk ¼ ! uk j d  !2 uk Mjk  i!uk Cjk
@n infinite domain. The boundary integral equation for
B
the hydrodynamic problem can be written from
ð7Þ Green’s third identity as
where Fjk is the hydrodynamic force in the jth-direc- Z
1 ~þ @G ~
tion due to the motion of the floating body, uk, and j ðÞ j ð x~ Þ ð x~ , Þdð x~ Þ
2 @n
B
Z ð11Þ
@j ~
¼ ð x~ ÞGð x~ , Þdð x~ Þ, x~ 2 B , j ¼ 1, ..., 7,
@n
B

where x~ ¼ ðx1 , x2 , x3 Þ and ~ ¼ ð1 , 2 , 3 Þ are source and

field points, respectively. The symbol G refers to
Green’s solution for infinite depth and is defined as
" Z1 ðx3 þ3 Þ 
~ 1 1 1 e
Gð x~ , Þ ¼ þ þ 2k J0 ðRÞd
4 r r1 k
0
#
þ i2keðx3 þ3 Þ J0 ðRÞ ð12Þ
Fig. 2 Schematic diagram of boundaries

Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science


qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
where R ¼ ðx1 1 Þ2 þðx2 2 Þ2 , r ¼ R 2 þðx3 3 Þ2 ,
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
and r1 ¼ R 2 þðx3 þ3 Þ2 . J0 is the first-kind Bessel
function.
To solve the boundary integral equation, the
boundary of the structure body surface is discretized
by boundary elements, and the equations are com-
puted element by element by approximating the
domain and variables with shape functions. Then,
the assembling of the equations results in a set of
algebraic equations that can be solved using a con-
ventional matrix solver. For hydrodynamic forces, a
constant-element method known as the constant-
panel method is usually used because the singular
integral of the boundary integral equation becomes
a simple expression when a constant element is used.
Recently, in spite of its complexity in the singular
integration, a high-order element that approximates
the boundary and variables as quadratic functions
has become popular because the higher order ele-
ments can reduce the total degrees of freedom and
give more accurate results [6].
For the analysis of hydrodynamic forces, a bound-
ary-element analysis code that uses a high-order
boundary element has been developed. Figure 3
shows the eight-node quadrilateral boundary ele-
ment developed in this study. To calculate Green’s
function, Telste and Noblesse’s FORTRAN subrou-
tine [25] is plugged into the code. In addition, we
introduce a polar transformation in order to
remove the Oð1=rÞ singularity in equation (11). The
details of the singularity integration can be found in
[26, 27]. To verify the developed code, the hemi-
sphere problem shown in Fig. 1 is solved, and the
results are compared with those of the analytic solu-
tion [28]. Figure 4 shows the boundary-element
mesh for the hemisphere problem. In Fig. 5, the anal-
ysis results with a fine mesh density (432 elements)
are compared with those of the analytic solution. In
Fig. 5, one can see that the two results are in good
agreement, except at a few frequencies. The irregular
frequencies come from the non-uniqueness of the
Fig. 3
Optimal shape design 755
solution of the exterior problem at the resonant fre-
quency of the corresponding interior problem [3].
The Burton–Miller approach [29] can overcome the
irregular frequency problem, but it was not imple-
mented in this study.
3 OPTIMAL UNDER-WATER SHAPE FOR
MINIMUM FORCES
Water waves are the most significant excitation
source for floating vessels. The motion of a floating
body needs to be stable against a random water wave
environment. The design objective of this study is to
minimize the motion of the floating body by mini-
mizing the external forces due to water waves. For
example, a mobile harbour, which has been recently
introduced as a new concept of maritime logistics, is a
floating body on the water. The mobile harbour must
keep on-ship crane motion as minimal as possible
against random water waves so that the crane can
safely load and unload containers. In this section,
an optimization problem for minimization of water
wave forces is proposed for the floating body. The
optimization formulation is applied to find under-
water shapes of the floating body that give minimum
water–structure interaction forces.
3.1. Minimum force optimization formulation
Considering a floating body with zero speed on the
water surface, the motion of the floating body is gov-
erned by equation (9), which consists of external
forces and dynamic structural properties of the
floating body. The external forces come from the
water waves and the dynamic properties determine
the transfer functions as an amplification factor.
Therefore, minimal water wave forces will result in
only slight motion of the floating body, except
around the resonant region. In the resonant region,
damping properties due to radiation and viscosity
effects of the water are a major influence on the
A high-order boundary element
Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science
756
Fig. 4 A BE mesh for a hemisphere problem
motion of the floating body. In this study, only exter-
nal water wave forces will be considered in finding
optimum shapes in order to reduce the motion of
the floating body.
Water wave forces on the floating body are depen-
dent on the under-water shape of the floating body.
So, we selected an under-water shape of the floating
body as a design variable. In addition, the displace-
ment of the floating body should be kept as a constant
because the displacement is a major function of the
floating body and is proportional to the volume of the
floating body below the water line. Therefore, an opti-
mization problem can be defined as follows.
~ such that
Find ðbÞ
Z !b
minimize  ¼ ~ !Þd!
ðb;
!a
~ ¼ V0
subject to V ððbÞÞ
b~ l  b~  b~ u
where  is the under-water shape of the floating
body,  is the objective function, V is the under-
water volume of the floating body, and b~ is the
design variable vector. b~ l and b~ u are the lower and
upper bounds of the design variables, respectively.
The design formulation is defined over the consid-
ered frequency range. The optimization problem is
solved by using a gradient-based optimizer, the
‘fmincon’ function in MATLAB [30]. For gradient
information, a forward finite-difference method is
Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science
D Lee and I Son
used in this study. The boundary-element code
described in the previous section is used to calculate
the hydrodynamic forces on the floating body.
3.2. A hemisphere problem
As a first example, the hemisphere problem in Fig. 1 is
introduced. It is assumed that a unit-amplitude wave
comes from the x-direction and the radius of the
hemisphere is 1 m. The shape of the under-water sec-
tion is assumed to be axisymmetric and parameter-
ized by cubic splines with five control points as
shown in Fig. 6. So, the design variables of the hemi-
sphere problem are the z-coordinates at the equally
spaced control points. The initial volume is kept as a
constant for the displacement constraint.
Two different objective functions are examined
ð13Þ
here for the hemisphere problem: the first objective
function is the water wave force in the vertical direc-
tion (case I), and the second objective is the force in
the pitch-moment direction (case II), which cause
heave and pitch motions, respectively. The frequency
ranges are set to wavenumbers of 0–2.0 for both cases.
Figures 7 and 8 show the optimized shape and the
vertical forces, respectively, for case I. Figures 9
and 10 show the optimized shape and the moment,
respectively, for case II. For case I, the objective func-
tion has been reduced by 9.8 per cent from the initial
hemisphere shape to the optimum shape over the
considered frequency range, as shown in Fig. 8,
which validates the optimization formulation of
 Optimal shape design 757

(a) Added mass

1.0

0.9 Analytic Sol.(surge)

Analytic Sol.(heave)
0.8
HOBEM(surge)
0.7 HOBEM(heave)

0.6
M/ρV

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0
0 1 2 3 4 5
2
ω L/g
Fig. 7 Optimized shape for a hemisphere problem:
(b) Damping coefficient
case I
Analytic Sol.(Surge)
Analytic Sol.(Heave)
0.4 HOBEM(Surge)
HOBEM(Heave) 2

1.8 Initial
C/ρωV

1.6 X-direction
Normalized Wave Forces

0.2 1.4 Optimized

1.2

1
Z-direction
0.8
0.0
0 2 4 0.6
2
ω L/g
0.4

Fig. 5 Comparison of the analysis results with those of 0.2

the analytic solution for a hemisphere problem.
0
(a) Added mass and (b) damping coefficient 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
w2R/g

Fig. 8 Water wave forces for case I

the hemisphere shape has an overall minimum pitch

Fig. 6 Design variables in a hemisphere problem
equation (13). However, one can see that the x-direc-
tion force that is not considered in case I is sacrificed
to increase the objective function. Case II is used to
minimize the pitch moment (F5) in order to reduce
the pitch motion of the hemisphere. Since, in case II,
moment, a conical shape is selected as the initial
shape for case II. The objective function for case II
has been reduced by 68.5 per cent at the optimum
shape. In Fig. 10, one can see that the pitch
moment has also decreased over the considered fre-
quency range. However, the optimum shape did not
converge to the hemisphere shape where the objec-
tive function is the global minimum, which also
shows the limitation of the gradient-based local
approach, although at the local minimum the perfor-
mance has drastically improved during the iterations.
3.3. A pontoon problem
A pontoon is a floating body that supports offshore
structures on the water surface. The objective of the

Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science

758 D Lee and I Son

second example is to design an under-water shape for
the pontoon that gives minimum forces against an
incident water wave. Figure 11 shows a schematic
diagram for the pontoon problem. To control the
under-water shape of the pontoon, 10 design vari-
ables that represent the depths from the water
surface are selected as shown in Fig. 11. The under-
water body shape is then generated by bi-cubic

5000

4000

3000 Initial

|F5|
Optimized

2000

1000

0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
2
ω R/g
Fig. 9 Optimized shape for a hemisphere problem:
case II Fig. 10 Water wave forces for case II

Fig. 11 A pontoon problem

Fig. 12 Boundary-element mesh at the initial design for a pontoon problem

Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science

 Optimal shape design 759

Fig. 13 Optimized shape for a pontoon problem: case I

Fig. 14 Optimized shape for a pontoon problem: case II

Fig. 15 Optimized shape for a pontoon problem: case III

splines aligned symmetrically along the centre-line.
The displacement of the pontoon is set to 7000 tons.
Figure 12 shows the boundary-element mesh, which
has 416 eight-node quadrilateral elements and 1309
nodes at the initial shape. The incident wave comes
from the x-direction, just as in the previous example.
In this example, three cases are considered for
optimization. In the first case (case I), the objective
function is the vertical water wave force due to the
incident wave with a frequency range of 0.001–
2.0 rad/s. The second case (case II) minimizes both
the vertical (z-direction) and front–back(x-direction)
forces at a single frequency, 1.05 rad/s. The selected
frequency is the peak frequency of a typical water
wave loading in the ocean. Case III is the same as
case II, except for the front–back symmetry condi-
tion. The front–back symmetry condition is applied
in case III with respect to the y-axis. Figures 13 and 16
show the results of case I. Only 5.3 per cent of the
objective function, compared to the initial value,

Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science

760 D Lee and I Son

7
3.0x10 F1
(a) 7
3.0x10
Initial
Optimized
Initial
7
2.0x10 Optimized
7
2.0x10
|F3|

|F3|
7
1.0x10
7
1.0x10

0.0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 0.0
ω(rad/sec) 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
ω(rad/sec)
Fig. 16 Water wave force for case I: F3
(b) F3
6
2.0x10

Initial
F1 Optimized
(a) 6 6
2.0x10 1.5x10

Initial
Optimized
|F1|

6 6
1.5x10 1.0x10
|F1|

6 5
1.0x10 5.0x10

5
5.0x10 0.0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
ω(rad/sec)

0.0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
Fig. 18 Water wave forces for a pontoon problem: case
ω(rad/sec)
III. (a) F1 and (b) F3

(b) F3
7
3.0x10
on the resulting force. Figures 14 and 17 show the
Initial optimization results for case II. As can be seen in
Optimized
Fig. 17, the formulation of case II resulted in a
2.0x10
7
major reduction of the x-direction force in spite of
considering both x-direction and vertical forces.
|F3|

Figures 15 and 18 show the optimization results for

7
case III. This case is a subset of case II so that the
1.0x10
amount of force reduction is less than that of case
II, as can be seen in Fig. 18. In addition, it is noticeable
that the optimum shape in Fig. 15 is very similar to
0.0 that of a ship.
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
ω(rad/sec)

Fig. 17 Water wave forces for a pontoon problem: 4 CONCLUSIONS

case II. (a) F1 and (b) F3
has been reduced in case I. In Fig. 16, we can see that
the water wave force was reduced slightly in the low-
frequency range and a little beyond 1 rad/s. This is
because in the low-frequency band, the wavelengths
are very large compared to the length of the pontoon,
so that the shape of the pontoon has little influence
An optimization formulation to design an under-
water shape for a floating body on water is proposed
from the viewpoint of minimal water–structure inter-
action forces. To analyse the hydrodynamic forces
exerted on the structure of a floating body, the
HOBEM is used with eight-node quadrilateral ele-
ments. The design objective is to minimize water
wave forces under the displacement constraint. The

Proc. IMechE Vol. 226 Part C: J. Mechanical Engineering Science

 Optimal shape design
presented work shows that water wave forces are
highly dependent on the shape of the floating body.
The shapes for minimal wave forces can be identified
from the proposed optimization formulation. The
presented examples can give some idea of how to
reduce passive motion of, for example, a mobile har-
bour, against incident water waves.
The current study also has limitations such as inef-
ficient sensitivity calculation during optimization
iterations and inefficient frequency analysis for
water wave forces. Structural dynamic characteristics
of the floating body are also not considered in this
study. However, future work can overcome the limi-
tations through, for example, an analytic sensitivity
formulation, parallel computing, and refined optimi-
zation formulation on the dynamic response of the
floating structure.
FUNDING
This work was supported by the National Research
Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea
government (MEST) (No. R01-2007-000-10986-0).
ß Authors 2011
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APPENDIX  density
 objective function
Notation  velocity potential
! angular velocity
A amplitude of incident wave
b~ design variable vector

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