Experimental study on hydrodynamic motion of hybrid type of pontoon

Recent interest for marine structure is for a floating structure with wide area focused on men´s activity such as floating housing complex, energy-island, floating airport, and so on. Pontoon and semi-submersible are the typical types for this purpose. Pontoon is the widely applied offshore floating structure with many advantages of buoyancy, simple details, storage ability, economy, and so on. However it is almost used in nearly still water conditions due to its structural shape. In this study, a new type of pontoon taking advantage of reduced motion was proposed and experimented with a small size specimen. It was a kind of hybrid and had sufficient space for buoyancy like a pontoon and an air-gap which is the characteristic feature of semi-submersible. Even though the hybrid pontoon lost its buoyancy about 16% with compared to that of a pontoon with same weight, it was observed that the motion of the proposed one was more stable than existing ones.