Transient axisymmetric motion of a floating cylinder

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Abstract
A linear theory is developed in the time domain for vertical motions of an axisymmetric cylinder floating in the free surface. The velocity potential is obtained numerically from a discretized boundary-integral-equation on the body surface, using a Galerkin method. The solution proceeds in time steps, but the coefficient matrix is identical at each step and can be inverted at the outset. Free-surface effects are absent in the limits of zero and infinite time. The added mass is determined in both cases for a broad range of cylinder depths. For a semi-infinite cylinder the added mass is obtained by extrapolation. An impulse-response function is used to describe the free-surface effects in the time domain. An oscillatory error observed for small cylinder depths is related to the irregular frequencies of the solution in the frequency domain. Fourier transforms of the impulse-response function are compared with direct computations of the damping and added-mass coefficients in the frequency domain. The impulse-response function is also used to compute the free motion of an unrestrained cylinder, following an initial displacement or acceleration.

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