Dual Stiffness Approach for Polyester Mooring Line Analysis in Time Domain

Author(s):  
Arcandra Tahar ◽  
Djoni Sidarta ◽  
Alex Ran

Polyester mooring lines have been used in the offshore industry since the late ’90s. With increasing oil exploration and production in deeper waters, using polyester lines provides greater benefit than using traditional steel wires and chains. Some advantages of using polyester include a reduction of mooring line weight, a reduction in vessel offset and a reduction in the dynamics of the line tensions. However, unlike steel, polyester lines exhibit axial stiffness characteristics that are nonlinear and vary with time and loading history. Tahar (2001) developed a comprehensive theory and numerical tool to capture this behavior. The formulas allow relatively large elongation and nonlinear stress-strain relationships, as typically observed in polyester fibers. The mooring line dynamics are based on a rod theory and finite element method (FEM), with the governing equations described in a generalized coordinate system. Since this theory is computationally intensive, the benefits outweigh the costs less than they do for the practical approach recommended by API. Therefore, the fully coupled dynamic analysis tool CHARM3D has been modified to incorporate the API-recommended approach. Two axial stiffnesses (EA), post installation (static) stiffness and storm (dynamic) stiffness, have been convoluted into a dual stiffness to represent the total response of the floating platform in a single run. In the traditional method, the analyses are done twice, one run for each stiffness. Then, the extremes from each run are used as governing values for design. This paper presents the global performance comparison between the dual stiffness method and the traditional method. The effect of motions on SCR strength is also investigated using ABAQUS software.

Author(s):  
Arcandra Tahar ◽  
Djoni Sidarta

This paper is a continuation of a series of investigation for the dual stiffness approach for polyester mooring lines. Tahar et. al. (2012) has presented the global performance comparison between the dual stiffness method and the traditional method for the Spar platform. As shown in that study, there are appreciable differences between the former and the later methods especially in lateral motions, which, however, result in little difference in SCR strength response. Is it because the Spar has better motion characteristics than other wet tree floating platforms such as the semisubmersible and FPSO? This paper will investigate the effect of the dual stiffness method and the traditional method to SCR response for a Semisubmersible platform. The fully coupled dynamic analysis tool CHARM3D has been modified to incorporate the dual stiffness approach. Two axial stiffnesses (EA) of polyester line, post installation (static) stiffness and storm (dynamic) stiffness have been convoluted into a dual stiffness to represent the total response of the floating platform in a single run. In the traditional method, the analyses are done twice, one run for each stiffness. Then, the extremes from each run are used as governing values for design. The SCR will be modeled and analyzed using ABAQUS software.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Dongsheng Qiao ◽  
Binbin Li ◽  
Jun Yan ◽  
Yu Qin ◽  
Haizhi Liang ◽  
...  

During the long-term service condition, the mooring line of the deep-water floating platform may fail due to various reasons, such as overloading caused by an accidental condition or performance deterioration. Therefore, the safety performance under the transient responses process should be evaluated in advance, during the design phase. A series of time-domain numerical simulations for evaluating the performance changes of a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) with different broken modes of mooring lines was carried out. The broken conditions include the single mooring line or two mooring lines failure under ipsilateral, opposite, and adjacent sides. The resulting transient and following steady-state responses of the vessel and the mooring line tensions were analyzed, and the corresponding influence mechanism was investigated. The accidental failure of a single or two mooring lines changes the watch circle of the vessel and the tension redistribution of the remaining mooring lines. The results indicated that the failure of mooring lines mainly influences the responses of sway, surge, and yaw, and the change rule is closely related to the stiffness and symmetry of the mooring system. The simulation results could give a profound understanding of the transient-effects influence process of mooring line failure, and the suggestions are given to account for the transient effects in the design of the mooring system.


Author(s):  
Gang Zou ◽  
Lei Wang ◽  
Feng Zhang

As the offshore industry is developing into deeper and deeper water, station keeping technics are becoming more and more important to the industry. Based on the dynamic positioning system, the thruster assisted mooring system (TAMS) is developed, which consisted of mooring lines and thrusters. The main function of the TAMS is to hold a structure against wind wave and current loads with its thruster and cables, which is mainly evaluated by the holding capacity of the system. The arrangement of the mooring lines (location of anchor or the mooring line angle relative to platform) will directly affect the TAMS holding capacity because of the influence of the directions of the mooring forces. So finding out an optimum arrangement of the mooring lines is essential since the performance of the TAMS depends greatly on the arrangement of the mooring lines. The TAMS of a semi-submersible platform, which is studied in this paper, consisted of eight mooring lines. By fixing the layout of the thrusters and changing the location of each mooring line for every case, the performances of the TAMS are analyzed. The platform motions, mooring line tensions and power consumptions are compared to obtain the optimum arrangement of mooring lines, and thus a thruster assisted mooring system with a better performance can be achieved. Time domain simulation is carried out in this paper to obtain the results.


Author(s):  
Lars Hilmersen

The use of fibre ropes made by synthetic fibres have been used more frequent as the offshore industry is moving towards larger water depths. An important aspect is the effect of handling on the large, but delicate, ropes during installation offshore using tools and equipment that easily can destroy the load bearing capacities of the ropes. In order to get hands on experience in the field large polyester ropes have been used as inserts in catenary mooring lines for Mobile Offshore Units (MODU) working on depths ranging from 80 to 350 meters. The ropes have been integrated in the catenary chain mooring lines both in the suspended part and in the bottom part of the mooring leg thus having been exposed to seafloor clay. Subsea buoy have been attached to the ropes using smaller size fibre ropes in order to lift the mooring lines from the seafloor. The paper will detail how the large fibre ropes have been mobilised and demobilised repeatedly from/to storage drums to/from the installation vessel winch drum. During installation and retrieval the fibre ropes have been installed from the vessels winch drum using regular anchor handling equipment and vessels. When the MODU has been moved between locations some ropes have been retrieved to the vessels winch drums while the others have been used to tow and to keep the units station. Samples of the used ropes are taken and is subjected to a test program in the laboratory in order to document the effect of extensive use and handling and exposure to seabed clay.


Author(s):  
Zhiling Li ◽  
Carlos Llorente ◽  
Cheng-Yo Chen ◽  
Chang Ho Kang ◽  
Edmund Muehlner ◽  
...  

For the global performance analysis of a floater, the traditional semi-coupled method models mooring lines/risers as nonlinear massless springs and ignores 1) the inertial effects from mooring lines/risers, 2) the current and wave load effects on mooring lines/risers, and 3) the dynamic interaction between mooring lines/risers and the floater. However, these effects are deemed critical for deepwater and ultra deepwater floating structures as they may have a significant impact on the floaters’ motions and mooring line/riser tensions. This paper presents the development and verification of a time-domain nonlinear coupled analysis tool, MLTSIM-ROD, which is an integration of a recently developed 3D rod dynamic program, ROD3D, with the well-calibrated floater global performance analysis program, MULTISIM (Ref [9]). The ROD3D was developed based on a nonlinear finite element method and merged with MULTISIM by matching the forces and displacements of mooring lines/risers with the floater at their connections. MLTSIM-ROD can thus predict the floater’s large displacement/rotation motions and mooring line/riser tensions including all the coupled effects between the floater and mooring lines/risers. In this paper, global performance predictions for a SPAR in the Gulf of Mexico in deepwater were carried out using MLTSIM-ROD. The results were then verified with those from other coupled analysis programs. The paper also presents the results of motions and mooring line/riser tensions of the SPAR using both the coupled and semi-coupled methods. The results from the coupled and semi-coupled analyses indicate that the floater’s motions and mooring line/riser tensions could be significantly influenced by the dynamic interactions between the floater and mooring lines/risers. Hence, the coupled method needs to be considered for deepwater floating structures.


Author(s):  
D. L. Garrett ◽  
R. B. Gordon ◽  
J. F. Chappell

Viscous damping due to drag on mooring lines and risers is seastate dependent and significantly affects the motion of a floating platform in deep water, particularly in everyday seastates. This in turn impacts design of the risers, which are typically controlled by fatigue. The dynamic interaction between the platform, mooring and risers cannot be evaluated using conventional uncoupled analysis tools, where each is analyzed separately. Rather, coupled analysis is required to provide a consistent way to model the drag-induced damping from mooring lines and risers. We describe a coupled, frequency domain approach (RAMS – Rational Approach to Marine Systems) for calculating the dynamic response of vessel, mooring and risers. In coupled analysis, the risers and mooring lines are included in the model along with the floater. In this way, damping of the floater motion due to drag on the mooring lines and risers is incorporated directly. It is also valuable to estimate the linear damping factors from the full, coupled analysis results. These damping factors may then, for example, be used in an equivalent linear model of the floating system in which the stiffness and damping effects of the mooring and risers are represented as additions to the floater stiffness and damping matrices. Such a model could be used to efficiently design a subsystem (e.g.; an export riser). We describe a technique to determine the equivalent linear damping factors from the coupled analysis results. This paper also illustrates the use of these methods for a West Africa FPSO. The need for coupled analysis is shown by comparing results from the fully coupled model with those obtained using an uncoupled method in which the mooring line damping is approximated.


2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinsong Liu ◽  
Lance Manuel

As offshore wind turbines supported on floating platforms extend to deep waters, the various effects involved in the dynamics, especially those resulting from the influence of moorings, become significant when predicting the overall integrated system response. The combined influence of waves and wind affect motions of the structure and induce tensile forces in mooring lines. The investigation of the system response under misaligned wind-wave conditions and the selection of appropriate mooring systems to minimize the turbine, tower, and mooring system loads is the subject of this study. We estimate the 50-year return response of a semisubmersible platform supporting a 13.2 MW wind turbine as well as mooring line forces when the system is exposed to four different wave headings with various environmental conditions (wind speeds and wave heights). Three different mooring system patterns are presented that include 3 or 6 mooring lines with different interline angles. Performance comparisons of the integrated systems may be used to define an optimal system for the selected large wind turbine.


Author(s):  
Yushun Lian ◽  
Solomon C. Yim ◽  
Jinhai Zheng ◽  
Haixiao Liu ◽  
Nan Zhang

Abstract In this study, effects of damage levels of fiber ropes on the performance of a hybrid taut-wire mooring system are investigated. The analysis is performed using a numerical floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) model with a hybrid mooring system installed in 3000 m of water depth. An in-depth study was conducted using the numerical model, the dynamic stiffness equation of damaged fiber ropes, the time-domain dynamic theory, the rainflow cycle counting method, and the linear damage accumulation rule of Palmgren-Miner. Results indicate that, in a mooring line with an increasing damage level, the maximum tension decreases, while the offset of the FPSO increases. Particularly, when a windward mooring line failure occurs, in addition to the significant increase in the offset of the FPSO, the maximum tension, tension range, and annual fatigue damage levels of the remaining lines adjacent to the failed also increase significantly. The present work can be of great benefit to the evaluation of the offset of the floating platform, the tension response, and the service life of the hybrid mooring systems.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 1809 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenqing Liu ◽  
Qingsong Zhou ◽  
Yuangang Tu ◽  
Wei Wang ◽  
Xugang Hua

The semi-submersible floating offshore wind turbine has been studied in detail due to its good stability. However, the occurrence of typhoons are very frequent in China’s offshore area, putting forward a higher requirement for the stability of the floating wind turbine system. By changing the connection mode of the mooring line as well as the structural form of the platform based on the original OC4 model, two groups of models were examined by an in-house developed code named as the Analysis Tool of Floating Wind Turbine (AFWT). The influence of the arrangement of the mooring lines and the inclination angle of the upper columns on the motion response were clarified. It was found that the surge motion of the platform would be obviously decreased by decreasing the length of the upper segments of the mooring lines, while the heave motion of the platform would be significantly decreased as increasing the inclined angle of the columns. Therefore, a new model integrating the optimized multi-segmented mooring lines and the optimized inclined columns was proposed. The examinations showed that compared with the response motions of the original OC4 semi-submersible model, the proposed model could reduce both the surge and heave motions of the platform effectively.


Author(s):  
Bruce Martin ◽  
Oriol Rijken ◽  
Kent Davies

The offshore industry has spent the last several years developing semisubmersible platforms capable of supporting both drilling and production activities. The production trees are located on top of the top tensioned risers (TTRs) on a Dry Tree Semisubmersible. A key challenge in the design of these vessels is to reduce the heave motion as much as possible to enable the use of state-of-the-art riser tensioners. A model test campaign was executed as part of the developmental program. The primary objective of this campaign was to improve the accuracy of the numerical tools to be used in the design process. Riser tensioners are typically hydro-pneumatic devices, with a nonlinear tension-stroke relationship. A riser tensioner was developed at model scale which had a similar nonlinear behavior to the prototype. Examining the effect of this tensioner on the global motions was an additional objective of this test campaign. The techniques used to model this nonlinear spring is described, and its effect on global motions investigated. A key challenge in model testing platforms intended for ultra-deep water (e.g. greater than 7000 ft) is the modeling of the mooring and riser system. The premise for the design of the model mooring system is 1.) maintain as best as possible the force-offset relationship of the mooring lines and 2.) be able to describe the model test configuration in the numerical tools to be used for global design. The near taut behavior of the prototype mooring system is modeled using heavy chain and a high-catenary mooring line.


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