ShipMo3D is a panel method based potential flow or BEM solver that is well suited to resolving the fluid dynamic response of ocean waves interacting with a floating structure. Loads from how the floating structure radiates waves as it moves around as well as the forces imparted by waves that pass and interact with the structure can be computed, but not any resulting viscous effects. However, empirical coefficents are used to account for many common viscous effects when modelling ship motions.

No – ShipMo3D only solves the fluid dynamic response involving surface waves. It does not specifically solve any fluid dynamic response to viscous effects.

In ProteusDS the influence of the structures on the environment is ignored. In specific cases some of these effects are incorporated, such as wave radiation and diffraction effects on large floating hulls as computed by ShipMo3D or wake models used for aquaculture nets.

A full CFD model will natively account for every structure’s influence on the environment and the resulting effects on any other structure in the system. These additional calculations come with a substantial computational cost penalty compared to ProteusDS.