02-04-2026 - Lecture Hall H

PhD Presentation

Finding dangerous waves: predicting wave impact design loads on maritime structures

Sanne van Essen

A wave impact on a ship or offshore / coastal structure is a dynamic event that occurs when a wave hits the structure, often due to large, steep waves or wave-induced motions. These impacts can cause damage, safety risks, pollution, reduced performance, or, rarely, structural failure, so their extremes must be considered in design. However, they are difficult to predict because they are both rare and complex, requiring both high-fidelity simulations and long analysis durations to reliably quantify the associated design loads.
Existing extreme value prediction methods are neither specifically developed nor adequately validated for wave impact phenomena. To address this, we introduce the Probabilistic Adaptive Screening (PAS) method, which combines copula-based dependence modelling with multi-fidelity screening and adaptive sampling. PAS efficiently predicts extreme loads by linking low-fidelity indicators to high-fidelity responses. Validation across four cases shows that it can accurately capture both weakly and strongly non-linear extremes, while significantly reducing computational cost compared to Monte Carlo methods.