An Experimental Investigation on the Dynamic Response of a Damaged Ship with a realistic arrangement of the flooded compartment

tThe dynamics of a damaged ship in waves is a complex phenomenon regarding fluid and structure inter-actions. Flooded water motions in the damaged compartment could be influenced by decks, obstructionsand obstacles in the compartment. This becomes particularly relevant in case of flooding in the engineroom that is usually characterized by the presence of large objects such as engines and machineries. Insuch cases the possibility to better understand the behavior of a damaged ship, influenced by the fluidand structure interactions, could provide novel outcomes and thus enhance the damaged ship safety.In this paper an experimental campaign is conducted on a passenger ferry hull. The effects of obstaclesin the engine room compartment, such as decks and engines, on ship roll responses, are studied. Rolldecay in still water and steady roll responses in beam regular waves at zero speed are measured for theempty compartment and for the compartment with obstructions, as defined above.The main outcomes from the conducted experiments disclose a mitigation of the resonant behav-ior of the coupled system, ship with damaged compartment, by having engine shapes occupying theflooded engine room. Moreover it is possible to observe how the resonant frequency of the ship modifieshaving a more realistic arrangement of damaged compartment and how motion RAOs and roll decaycharacteristics modify accordingly.