Seekeeping cover @Adobe Stock

Seakeeping

Anticipating vessel behavior at sea  

To ensure an asset’s operability, safety and comfort at sea, owners must know how they will perform well before they ever see open water. Calculating an asset’s behavior at sea and ability to withstand waves is particularly challenging at high speeds. Vessels encounter a different set of problems in shallow waters, where modeling and calculation must be accurate. Design offices, shipyards, operators and shipowners need to have the right seakeeping expertise during the design phase, as this data forms the basis of all other studies, such as those concerning mooring, maneuverability and structural design.

With decades of hydrodynamics expertise, BV Solutions M&O offers a wide range of services to increase assets’ efficiency, operability, safety and comfort. Our in-house tools and state-of-the-art software are widely renowned and used throughout the marine and offshore industries today.

Our added-value

BV Solutions M&O’s seakeeping studies ensure safety, de-risking, compliance with regulations, and comfort, from the design stage onward.

By maximizing an asset’s operability, we enhance profitability and extend its lifetime use.

In the case where expected performance levels are not reached, we support our clients to improve their asset’s behavior.

We identify which mitigation devices (fins, antiroll tanks, etc.) should go with each asset according to different operating conditions.

We work to predict asset operability, both for standard floating assets and dynamically positioned vessels

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Motor yacht in high speed

Seakeeping analyses

With industry-standard tools, it is relatively easy to predict a vessel’s motions and accelerations when cruising at normal speed in high depths. However, at high speeds or in shallow waters—perhaps moored side by side to a jetty  with another boat—the interaction between structures and waves becomes much more complex. BV Solutions M&O uses a variety of tools and CFD calculations to accurately predict all interactions between structures in this environment.

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Cruise in operation

Slamming studies

Impact between waves and a ship’s bow can adversely affect structural integrity. Our seakeeping analysts help clients anticipate any possible risk of slamming by quantifying not only the risk, but also the impact on the structure itself.

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Waves on the deck of a ship

Greenwater studies

Particularly on offshore platforms, water on deck poses a significant challenge that can negatively impact equipment, filters and compressors installed on the processing facility. These situations also represent a safety concern for personnel on the platform at the time of the breech. Our experts use proprietary seakeeping tools to perform analyses of both risks and impacts related to greenwater situations.

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Cruise in operation - sky view

Hydrodynamic damping coefficients

BV Solutions M&O has developed advanced methodology and a full CFD approach to properly assess the roll motion of a vessel at sea. If an asset fails to meet performance criteria, BV Solutions M&O engineers will provide hull design improvements to ensure it behaves with the expected level of performance.

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Photo de Pierrick SERGENT
Pierrick
SERGENT

Head of Fluid and Dynamic Team

BV Solutions M&O

Seakeeping calculations are needed at the start of vessel design. The data collected forms the basis for all the studies that come afterwards, so it needs to be performed carefully and methodically. It goes without saying that you need the right expertise from the start of the project.
30Years developing proven in-house seakeeping tools