EXPERIMENTAL AND NUMERICAL INVESTIGATIONS OF TETHERED SPAR AND SPHEREBUOYS IN IRREGULAR WAVES

A series of large-scale experiments were conducted to examine the moti ons of buoys in a variety of wave climates. In conjunction with these experiments, numerical simulations of selected tests were conducted to test the present ability of a particular computer program to model bu oy responses. This paper considers individual wave tests for two of th e buoy models used in the experiments, a spar buoy and a sphere buoy. The wave field is generated using a JONSWAP spectrum. A description of the experiments shows that each buoy is subject to. significant reson ant responses, in heave for the spar and surge for the sphere, even th ough wave forcing is not present at or immediately adjacent to the res onant frequencies. The numerical simulations show generally good compa risons with the experimental data.