Detection of Parametric Roll on Ships

Recent years have shown several incidents with dramatic damage on container vessels caused by parametric resonance. When the resonance starts, the roll oscillation at a sub-harmonic frequency of the wave excitation may be completely unexpected. Timely warning about the onset of the resonance phenomenon could make the navigator change ship’s speed and heading, and these remedial actions could make the vessel escape the bifurcation. This chapter proposes non-parametric methods to detect the onset of parametric roll resonance. Theoretical conditions for parametric resonance are re-visited and signal-based methods are developed to detect its onset. Hypothesis testing is derived for the particular distribution of the indicators for resonance. Robustness is investigated by analyzing forced roll and disturbances in real weather conditions. The performance of the novel methods is demonstrated on experimental data from towing tank tests and data from a container ship passing an Atlantic storm.