Shared sea-environment definition and realization for maritime and offshore co-simulations

Abstract

Marine operations are often developed with the use ofnumeric simulation, in particular lifting operations andtransfer of cargo between different units at sea. Theeffect of the environmental conditions is often thelimiting factor and must be included together with modelsof different components and sub-systems. This paperdescribes an approach to synchronize spatial and temporalenvironment information such as universal constants,current, wind, and wave for use in co-simulations of marineoperations. Co-simulation models in marine operations willinherently use physical constants, wind and currentvelocities to calculate forces. Wind and current velocitiescan have spatial and temporal variations that require themodels to synchronize the values. In the event ofsimulations in waves, the position of the ocean surface,wave particle velocities must be coherent betweenindividual co-simulation models. Further complicatingmatters is the case of propulsors that produce forces bycreating local currents. This paper suggests a structureddescription of an environment for co-simulation of marineoperations. This is exemplified by the implementation of aco-simulation of an offshore lifting operation wherevessel, crane, propulsors and lifting load are allintegrated with a common environment.