LAUSR

Ship–seabed interaction is highly critical to ship safety and ship performance when ship operates over shallow water with uneven seabed. However, the prediction method for ship reaction is still yet to be fully developed. In this paper, a high-fidelity transient numerical simulation method with sliding mesh is developed based on computational fluid dynamics to model a vessel passing a step bank, demonstrating to be a computational cost economical solution. The comprehensive numerical model is validated and verified against benchmarked experimental and numerical studies, which is proved to be highly accurate in predicting force characteristics and wave development. Meanwhile, during the research the impulse effect generated by the step bank was found to have striking effects on the wave elevation, wake development and vessel sinkage. Five regions on the behaviour of vessel sinkage are defined in the present work. According to the result, the vessel will encounter the extreme sinkage after a relatively long distance (12 $${L}_{\mathrm{pp}}$$ L pp at $${F}_{h2}=0.519$$ F h 2 = 0.519 ) passing the step bank instead of immediately.