The use of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to study floating structures subjected to ocean waves is increasingly popular nowadays. However, there is a limited amount of literature available on the nonlinear dynamic response study of mooring lines. This study presents a coupled simulation of moored floating barge with waves using CFD software OpenFOAM and lumped mass mooring model MoorDyn. The mooring line model is integrated with the fluid flow solver to replicate a physically restrained rigid body in the presence of waves. The floating barge position and velocity are passed from the motion library in CFD model to calculate the fairlead kinematics. The mooring reaction forces which are calculated by MoorDyn, are returned to the motion solver to update the new position of the floating barge. The OlaFlow solver is employed to simulate the interaction between sea waves and the floating barge. The dynamic response of the barge, both with and without mooring lines, is calculated numerically and validated using existing literature data. The simulation results for a moored floating barge are compared with ANSYS AQWA results, demonstrating the effective use of the CFD code in accurately predicting the nonlinear response of a floating barge in regular waves.


KEYWORDS: CFD, Nonlinear wave structure interactions, Rigid body motion, OpenFOAM, Moored structures, ANSYS AQWA.