The impact of wind and wave on offshore drilling platform can be calculated by the use of computer, and then we can design a more solid, anti-wave offshore platform. And we can test the new ship type in computer digital ocean so as to test and optimize ship form and improve the ship hydrodynamic performance.

Using computer to build a numerical tank which can breakthrough tank wall limit and be powerful for ships and offshore structures is the ambition for Duan Wenyang and his team in the future. Duan Wenyang is the chief scientist of "deep ocean engineering and high-tech ship collaborative innovation center" and distinguished professor of Harbin Engineering University Cheung Kong Scholars program. Recently, "numerical tank technology tank top study" has been approved by MIIT.

Physical pool requires large investment and long construction period, the function is not complete, and it is difficult to change once completed, which cannot meet the high speed development of ship and marine engineering equipment. Take the deep sea platform as an example, if the part of semi-submersible platform above the sea level has a projection of 5000 square meters, the distribution of its underwater mooring system will be equivalent to the size of Wuhuan of Beijing. While the numerical tank can combine computer and CFD software, which has higher efficiency, shorter time, lower cost, remote control, less uncertainty in design, easier to achieve design optimization than physical pool under the premise of same precision.

The basic principle of numerical wave tank is to simulate fluid flow by computer, solve the fluid equations of motion, and simulate the movement and force of ocean structure, so as to achieve even go beyond the function of physical pool by software, and design optimal ship form and deep sea platform. The technology is the most important supporting technology of ship and ocean engineering equipment development transforming from physical pool to virtual simulation test, and it is not only the new direction of development of international water dynamics, but also the revolutionary transformation for ship and ocean engineering equipment design method, thus having extremely important theoretical and engineering significance.

Duan Wenyang introduced that take the spar platform test of deep-sea engineering as an example, the spiral plate is the key of platform column design. Testing a coil damping plate in traditional physical pool takes at least half a month with the economic cost at least a million; if we use numerical tank, it needs only 12 hours and 640 nuclear computer usage, costing only 1152 yuan.