Samenvatting

A few years ago the Maritime Pilots Institute Netherlands (MPIN) was asked to carry out practical research aimed at developing a simple method to predict wind loads on huge constructions. For practical reasons the method should not be time consuming. Some reasons for the initiative were the following. Quite frequently large vessels and huge complex constructions, varying from offshore constructions to container cranes, enter or leave Dutch ports. Wind has given rise to dangerous situations during manoeuvres with barges or ships carrying high and/or complex structures several times in the past, despite the fact that usually both master and pilot make at least rough calculations as to the wind loads. With the present size of the port of Den Helder and with the increasing size of the lateral area of naval ships such as the landing platform docks (LPD) and the joint logistic support ships (JSS) these dangerous situations may also arise with ships of the Royal Netherlands Navy. The second reason was the substantial difference in the results of calculations used by a major shipping company and the approach used by Netherlands pilots. Finally, during this study MPIN was asked to co-operate in a research program concerning the nautical consequences of the development of a new extension to the port of Rotterdam: Maasvlakte-2. For this research MARIN (Maritime Research Institute Netherlands) and MSR (Maritime Simulation Institute Rotterdam) developed mathematical ship models of container vessels up to 385 m in length and of considerable height. A very important issue for these vessels was the calculation of the wind loads. This was a reason for MPIN to extend the study to wind loads on these large vessels as well.