The wave forces which act on a vessel to cause oscillation may be divided into two types.

The first type are linear wave forces of the same period as the waves and may be obtained by integrating the fluctuating water pressure over the submerged area of the hull. Since the vessel will usually alter the wave pattern around itself the problem of diffraction of the wave system by the vessel has to be solved before the wave force can be determined. These forces are capable of exciting the natural periods of vertical oscillation of a vessel. With non-linear moorings they are also capable of exciting the natural periods of horizontal oscillation. The strongest non-linearity in moorings arises because the fenders are generally stiffer than the mooring lines. In a beam sea a vessel can move transversely on and off the fenders at a subharmonic of the wave period, i.e. the wave period divided by n, where n is an integer, and the largest motion occurs at the subharmonic which is nearest to the natural period of this motion. Although this type of vessel response can be avoided by making the fendering as soft as the mooring lines it does not necessarily follow that relatively soft fenders are better than relatively stiff ones, because the second type of wave forces described in this subclause could excite a larger resonant response of a vessel on softer moorings. The second type of wave forces are non-linear and occur as a consequence of the irregular nature of the sea surface. Since waves travel in groups they produce secondary wave forces with the periodicity of wave groups. These secondary forces are smaller than the linear wave forces described in this subclause but they have periods similar to the natural periods of horizontal oscillation of moored ships. Since the natural damping of these oscillations is low, quite small secondary wave forces are capable of building up large resonant oscillations of a vessel on its moorings. For a vessel which is scattering the waves, a force is produced at the waterline due to scatter of the momentum carried by the waves. Since this momentum is larger in a group of high waves than in a group of small waves, the force produced will have the periodicity of wave groups. The fluctuating water pressures produced by set-down beneath wave groups (see 24.3) will also act on the submerged part of the hull to produce a significant force in shallow water at wave group periods. 31.3 Methods for determining acceptable sea states 31.3.1 General. Until the advent of large ships, mooring techniques were based on practical experience. That this has proved successful is due partly to the fact that most vessels were able to moor in sheltered harbours or in relatively calm areas inshore. Past experience, therefore, can be used in determining the mooring arrangement for ships in sheltered waters. Large ships, however, require

deeper water for their moorings and this frequently means that they are subjected to a greater degree of wave action since the deeper water of harbours is usually nearer to the harbour entrance. Relatively few harbours have sufficient water depth for ships with displacements in excess of 60 000 t and one method of mooring such vessels is to build an offshore mooring without the protection of breakwaters. This can take the form of a system of mooring dolphins accommodating both mooring lines and fenders. Principally on account of the two reasons given in this subclause, the need has arisen for an adequate description of the response of a vessel moored in waves. This can be done with varying degrees of accuracy and reliability by physical models, analytical methods and computational models. At present the most reliable method of predicting a vessel s response under wave action is to build and test a physical model. 31.3.2 Physical models. These models use the Froude scaling laws (see 29.5) and are similar to harbour response models. However, the model scale is rarely smaller than 1 : 100 in order to permit reasonable accuracy in the measurement of scaled mooring loads. In problems concerned with the mooring of vessels in relatively exposed harbours it is necessary to represent the harbour in the model to obtain the correct vessel response. The load/deflection characteristics of fenders and mooring lines are usually represented in the model by a system of cantilever springs which can be made to reproduce any non-linear characteristic. Strain gauges are normally used to measure mooring loads. A variety of systems may be used to measure all six degrees of freedom of vessel movement (see Figure 20) but in the process of measurement they should not impose forces on the model vessel which could significantly affect its response.