Statistical Methods for Prediction of Characteristic Loads for Free Fall Lifeboats Based on CFD Screening Results

Author(s):  
Vidar Tregde ◽  
Arne Nestegård

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been used in a screening process to calculate characteristic loads for a Free Fall Lifeboat (FFLB) during impact and submergence. The link between various input, e.g. environmental conditions and host specific data, resulting structural loads and motion of the lifeboat is explored. The screening can be used together with host specific environmental conditions to find structural design loads and motion restrictions. Response based analysis have been developed for both short term and long term predictions. For the short term predictions a sea state given by (Hs, Tp) on the 100-year contour line is identified and a three hour irregular sea state is simulated. This time history of surface elevations is used for a large number of random lifeboat drops. From these random drops a distribution of wave height and corresponding wave steepness is derived which is then input to an interpolation in the database of CFD screening results. The resulting responses are fitted to a Weibull distribution and the 90% quantile in this short term load distribution is determined. The long term response analysis is further developed from the short term analysis. The short term distributions for each (Hs, Tp) are combined with the probability of occurrence of the sea state, and long term distributions are derived for the responses similar to the short term analysis. The screening results are used to identify critical load cases which are further investigated.

Author(s):  
Feng Wang ◽  
Roger Burke ◽  
Anil Sablok ◽  
Kristoffer H. Aronsen ◽  
Oddgeir Dalane

Strength performance of a steel catenary riser tied back to a Spar is presented based on long term and short term analysis methodologies. The focus of the study is on response in the riser touch down zone, which is found to be the critical region based on short term analysis results. Short term riser response in design storms is computed based on multiple realizations of computed vessel motions with various return periods. Long term riser response is based on vessel motions for a set of 45,000 sea states, each lasting three hours. The metocean criteria for each sea state is computed based on fifty six years of hindcast wind and wave data. A randomly selected current profile is used in the long term riser analysis for each sea state. Weibull fitting is used to compute the extreme riser response from the response of the 45,000 sea states. Long term analysis results in the touch down zone, including maximum bending moment, minimum effective tension, and maximum utilization using DNV-OS-F201, are compared against those from the short term analysis. The comparison indicates that the short term analysis methodology normally followed in riser design is conservative compared to the more accurate, but computationally more expensive, long term analysis methods. The study also investigates the important role that current plays in the strength performance of the riser in the touch down zone.


Author(s):  
Tone M. Vestbo̸stad ◽  
Sverre Haver ◽  
Odd Jan Andersen ◽  
Arne Albert

This paper presents a method for predicting extreme roll motion on an FPSO using long-term statistics. The method consists of a long-term simulation where a database of consecutive short-term sea states with combined weather conditions, including direction and magnitude of wind, wind waves and swell waves, is used. The vessel heading in given weather conditions is simulated. For each combined sea state, the short-term roll motion maxima are calculated to form a long-term probability distribution, and the extreme roll motion, e.g. the 100-year value, can be estimated from the distribution. For an example FPSO, the results from the long-term analysis have been compared with full-scale measurements, giving a validation of the method. This paper is a shortened version of [1].


Author(s):  
Gro Sagli Baarholm ◽  
Sverre Haver ◽  
Carl M. Larsen

This paper is concerned with estimating the response value corresponding to given annual exceedance probability. In principle, this requires that a full long term analysis is executed. For a linear response this can easily be done. For a non-linear response quantity however, where time domain simulations are required in order to obtain the short term stochastic structure a full long term analysis will be time consuming. An approximate method to determine the long-term extremes by considering only a few short term sea states is outlined. All sea states corresponding to a certain probability of occurrence and are given by a contour line of Hs, Tp for each wave direction. The advantage of the method is that a proper estimate of the long term extreme can be obtained by considering the most unfavourable sea state along the contour line. This will make possible practical estimation of the extreme loads the structure is exposed to. The purpose of the present paper is to illustrate how to apply directional contour lines in order to obtain a characteristic design value according to requirements regarding the marginal exceedance probability.


Author(s):  
Ho-Joon Lim ◽  
Gunnar Lian ◽  
Sverre Haver ◽  
Oddgeir Dalane ◽  
Bonjun Koo ◽  
...  

A long term analysis was performed to determine extreme wave slamming loads on the Aasta Hansteen Spar, the first production and storage Spar to be installed in the Norwegian Sea. The Spar will experience high slamming pressures on the hull due to harsh environments in the field. Extensive model tests were performed to measure the wave slamming pressure which is one of challenging design parameters. The slamming loads were measured with a 3×3 array of force transducer panels attached to the Spar hull. The extreme slamming loads were estimated from 3-hour simulations of the 100-yr and 10000-yr wave environments at the Aasta Hansteen field in the Norwegian Sea. The wave simulations included fourteen sea states, and each sea state was represented by as many as 20 realizations. Based on model test data, short term analysis of 3-hour extreme pressure at each tested sea state was performed using the Gumbel distribution. Due to high variability of 3-hour maximum pressures, a long term analysis was required to investigate the proper percentile level to be used in the design. The paper presents a long term statistical methodology for extreme wave slamming loads that is used to calculate long term slamming pressures corresponding to a specified annual exceedance probability of q (e.g., q = 10−2 and q = 10−4). The paper also derives the appropriate non-exceedance probability for a short term wave environment that reproduces the long term pressures of a specified annual exceedance probability, q. Various sensitivity analyses (e.g., on the two Gumbel parameters, number of realizations, etc.) were performed to validate the short term target percentiles and associated extreme pressures derived from this approach. Details of the model tests and methodology to define the design pressure profile above mean water level (MWL) are presented in a companion paper of this Conference.


Author(s):  
Yuliang Zhao ◽  
Sheng Dong

The accurate assessment of long-term extreme responses of floating-structure mooring system designs is important because of small failure probabilities caused by long-term and complex ocean conditions. The most accurate assessment would involve considering all conceivable sea states in which each sea state is regarded as a stochastic process and performing nonlinear time-domain numerical simulations of mooring systems to estimate the extreme response from a long-term analysis. This procedure would be computationally intensive because of the numerous short-term sea states involved. Here, a more feasible approach to evaluate the long-term extreme response is presented through immediate integration combined with Monte Carlo simulations. A parameter fitting procedure of the short-term extreme response distribution under irregular wave conditions is employed to solve the long-term response integration. Case studies were conducted on a semi-submersible platform using environmental data measurements of the Gulf of Mexico and a joint distribution model of the environmental parameters was considered. This approach was observed to be effective and the results were compared with those of traditional methodologies (univariate extreme value design and environmental contour methods). The differences were reflected using a reliability analysis of mooring lines, which indicated that the design standards must be stricter when using long-term analysis.


Author(s):  
Quentin Derbanne ◽  
Fabien Bigot ◽  
Guillaume de Hauteclocque

The evaluation of extreme bending moment corresponding to a 25 years return period requires very long simulations on a large number of sea states. This long term analysis is easy to do with a linear model of the ship response, but is impractical when using a time consuming model including non linear and slamming loads. In that case some simplified methods need to be applied. These methods are often based on Equivalent Design Waves (EDW) which are calibrated on the extreme linear value. The general practice is to define the EDW as a regular wave. A very simple method is to compute the non linear bending moment applying the pressure correction on the hull without recomputing the ship motions. A better method is to recompute in time domain the non linear ship response on this Design Wave. It is even possible to define a more realistic Design Wave, taking into account the frequency and directional content of the sea states used in the long term analysis: those waves are called Response Conditioned Wave and Directional Response Conditioned Waves. The different methods are applied to an Ultra Large Container Ship (ULCS). Hydro-structure calculations are carried out on a severe design sea state, taking into account Froude-Krylov pressure correction, slamming forces and whipping response. Results of a very long computation are compared to the results of the Design Wave approaches. Another method is proposed to compute very rare events. It is based on an artificial increase of the significant wave height of the sea state, and the assumption of the independence of the non linear effects to the significant wave height. Using this method it is possible, with a simulation of only a few hours, to predict a very rare short term event, corresponding to a very long return period. The results are compared to the Design Wave results and appear to be much more precise.


Author(s):  
Quentin Derbanne ◽  
Guillaume de Hauteclocque ◽  
Martin Dumont

Current practices in offshore unit design are based on the prediction of the 100 years response (tension, offset, stress...). The methodologies described in various standards (ISO, API...) are all very similar: several design environments are described with a combination of sea state, wind and current. Usually envelope contours are used, describing a set of environmental conditions corresponding to a 100 years return period. These design conditions are supposed to produce the highest responses. A time domain (or sometimes frequency domain) simulation is done on each of these short-term conditions, and the 3h most probable maximum (MPM) is computed for each. The highest MPM over all the design conditions is taken as the 100 years response. This approach completely neglects the short-term variability of the response. This paper compares several design methods with the exact 100 years response. The exact 100 years response is computed by integrating the conditional short-term distributions with respect to the probability density function of the environmental conditions. The various design methods are all based on a simplification of an Inverse First Order Reliability Method (IFORM) approach, which requires computing one or several design conditions corresponding to one or several return periods, each of these conditions being associated with a given short-term quantile. Computations are done using two datasets. At first realistic line tensions of 7 offshore units are used, based on a large number of simulations with a mooring software. On a second stage a more general parametric model using a Weibull distribution to describe the long-term variability and a Gumbel distribution to describe the short-term distribution of the 3h maximum is used. It is shown that the current methods are unconservative with respect to the exact 100 years response. A more accurate method is proposed, based on a 40 years return period associated with the quantile 90% and a correction factor of 1.04.


2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Haver ◽  
S. R. Winterstein

Design of offshore structures involves the calculation of reliable estimates for loads and responses corresponding to annual exceedance probabilities of 10-2 and 10-4. In order to do so, all sources of inherent randomness must be accounted for, i.e. the short term variability of say the 3-hour extreme value in a given sea state should be combined with the long term variability of the sea state characteristics. This calls for some sort of a long term analysis. For linear or nearly linear problems this can easily be done, while such an analysis becomes more complicated and time consuming for strongly non-linear response problems. The difficulties are greater if a major part of the environmental load is of an on-off nature. This paper illustrates an approximate approach, the environmental contour line method, for obtaining proper estimates of long term extremes utilizing a short term analysis. Examples are also included.


Author(s):  
Pedro Seabra ◽  
Luis Volnei Sudati Sagrilo ◽  
Paulo Esperança

Abstract Nowadays, the most used methodology to predict line tensions is the short-term coupled analysis, where the mooring system responses are obtained by a time-domain analysis for only some specific design combinations of extreme environmental conditions. This mooring analysis demands certain considerations and it is not the best way to obtain the offshore structure responses. The advances in both quantity and quality of collected environmental data and the increase of the computers processing power has enabled to consider the approach of more accurate long-term methodologies for mooring systems design. This paper proposes a numerical/computational procedure to obtain the extreme loads (ULS) acting on offshore platforms’ mooring lines. The work is based on the methodology of long-term analysis, employing a 10-yr long short-term environmental dataset of 3-h sea-states, where each short-term environmental condition is composed of the simultaneously observed environmental parameters of wave (sea and swell), wind and current. The methodology is applied to the analysis of three different mooring systems: a) spread-moored FPSO, b) Semi-Submersible platform and c) turret-moored FPSO. The Bootstrap approach is employed in order to take into account the statistical uncertainty associated to the estimated long-term most probable extreme response due to the limited number of short-term environmental conditions. The work was carried out using Dynasim software [1] to generate the time domain tension time series, which were later post-processed by using computational codes developed with Python software. Longer short-term numerical simulations lengths than the short-term period (3-h) have been investigated in order to understand the influence of this parameter on the final extreme long-term top tensions.


Author(s):  
Quentin Derbanne ◽  
Jean-Franc¸ois Leguen ◽  
Thierry Dupau ◽  
Etienne Hamel

Long-term analysis is more and more used to establish the design loads by performing direct loads evaluation. The long-term distribution of wave loads acting on a ship depends on the short-term contributions of the response in all the wave conditions the ship encounters in her life: sea state, relative heading, speed, load case... For each short-term condition the statistical parameters that describe the response are considered to be constant. Therefore a long-term analysis needs a correct evaluation of the short-term parameters that characterise the short-term response. The Weibull distribution is often used to model the extreme response on a given sea state. The precision of the long-term analysis depends directly on the precision of the Weibull parameters. The first part of this paper is a study of the influence of the simulations parameters (number of wave components, simulation time) and of the different methods used to fit a Weibull distribution on the bending moment extremes, on the precision of the Weibull parameters and on the extreme values. Every choice of parameter used for the final calculations will be justified. The conclusion is that by using a correct fitting method, and provided that there are at least 128 wave components, the overall precision is only dependent on the simulation time: the precision on the 10−5 extreme value is only ±6.4% with 400 extremes, and ±1.9% with 3200 extremes! In order to increase the precision of the evaluation of the Weibull parameters over the entire scatter diagram, without increasing the simulation time, a smoothing method is proposed, based on a polynomial smoothing of the A1/3 and A1/10 values obtained from linear and non linear calculations on the same wave signal, and on the method of moments. This method leads to an increase of precision of about 3 times, that is equivalent to increase the simulation time by 8 or 9! The second part of this paper presents the results of the long-term analysis carried out on 14 ships (ferries, container vessel, naval ships,...), using a non-linear sea-keeping time-domain software. Calculations have been done without forward speed in head waves and for all the sea states of the IACS scatter diagram (more than 200 sea states). The smoothing method has been used to compute all the Weibull coefficients. Results show that it is possible to model the non-linear effects by applying a non-linear coefficient on the linear bending moment for one speed, one scatter diagram and one extreme value probability. But this coefficient can’t be applied, and must be recalculated, if other cases are needed (other speed, other scatter diagram, relative heading distribution or other extreme value probabilities). Every ships will be compared in the same graph in order to evaluated the influence of the design hull form (as overall length and bow flare) on the non linear long term bending moments value (in hogging and in sagging). The calculations were focused on the case of a particular frigate where more parameters were studied as forward speed, operational profile (in speed and relative headings) and scatter diagram choice. In the third part results from model test performed on a height segmented model of the frigate will be compared to the short term results computed by the sea-keeping software. This frigate has been monitored for three years, and the strain measurements at sea will be compared to the numerical long-term analysis.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document