Experimental Study on Hydrodynamics of a FPSO in Deepwater Gulf of Mexico

Author(s):  
Jaime Torres Lopez ◽  
Longbin Tao ◽  
Longfei Xiao ◽  
Zhiqiang Hu

The scaled model testing of a FPSO with its mooring lines and risers for deepwater and ultra-deepwater installation sites is considered to be the most reliable methodology to study the complex hydrodynamic behaviour of the complete system, since it can represent the nearest real environmental conditions and the comprehensive hydrodynamic interactions of the waves, current and wind with the total floating production system. The best technical option, at the present time, is a combination of an appropriate scale model of the FPSO and a suitable level of truncation obtained using a hybrid passive truncated experimental methodology for the mooring lines and risers. This is in order to minimize the various uncertainties in model behaviour and to study the hydrodynamic behaviour of the complete floating system and thus to validate numerical design of prototype systems for installation in deepwater and ultra-deepwater locations. This paper investigates the global response of a specific FPSO to prevailing environmental conditions, based on a hybrid passive truncated experimental methodology for the mooring lines and risers in a specific deepwater location with a water depth of 1000m in the GOM. The main objective of the experiment is to examine the nonlinear effects of the FPSO vessel and its mooring lines and to provide reliable experimental data for subsequent extrapolation to a full scale prototype design. Several case studies were carried out. The FPSO global responses for Full load and Ballast Load conditions with static and dynamic load tension components of the truncated mooring lines were studied for both collinear and non-collinear extreme storm environmental conditions. The experiments revealed that the main horizontal plane motion response of the FPSO (surge) under non-collinear loading condition is almost two-times that of the collinear loading condition.

Author(s):  
Jordi Serret ◽  
Tim Stratford ◽  
Philipp R. Thies ◽  
Vengatesan Venugopal ◽  
Tahsin Tezdogan

Abstract Floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) installations are progressing from the R&D stage to commercial installation projects. The prospective sites are situated in increasingly deeper water and further away from the shore. This paper presents the Deep Turbine Installation-Floating (DTI-F) concept, an innovative hybrid spar buoy-based FOWT capable of being able to raise and lower the tower and nacelle, which simplifies construction, installation, maintenance and decommissioning. The study is focused on the hydrodynamics of the moored floating system, and it is based on experimental and numerical modelling work. A 1:45 Froude scaled model of the DTI-F wind concept was tested using three different mooring configurations: i) three mooring lines, ii) four mooring lines, and iii) three mooring lines with a delta connection. Free decay and stiffness decay tests were carried out together with regular and irregular wave tests. The numerical study comprises diffraction (ANSYS AQWA) and time-domain modelling (OrcaFlex). The experimental hydrostatic and hydrodynamic results are compared with the numerical simulations based on the as-built scale model. Considering the natural frequencies results obtained for the three mooring configurations, the three lines configuration without delta connection was selected as the most suitable design. The obtained results for the three mooring lines configuration show good agreement between the experiment and numerical simulations. The presented analysis of the design concept indicates a high degree of technical feasibility.


2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 222-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. V. Paranin ◽  
A. B. Batrashov

The article compares the results of calculation of the finite element simulation of current and temperature distribution in the scale model of the DC catenary with the data of laboratory tests. Researches were carried on various versions of the structural design of catenary model, reflecting the topological features of the wire connection, characteristic of the DC contact network. The proportions of the cross-sectional area of the scaled model wires are comparable to each other with the corresponding values for real DC catenary. The article deals with the operating conditions of the catenary model in the modes of transit and current collection. When studying the operation of the scale catenary model in the transit mode, the effect of the structural elements on the current distribution and heating of the wires was obtained. Within the framework of the scale model, theoretical assumptions about the current overload of the supporting cable near the middle anchoring have been confirmed. In the current collection mode, the experimental dependences of the current in the transverse wires of the scale model are obtained from the coordinate of the current collection point. Using the model it was experimentally confirmed that in the section of the contact wire with local wear, not only the temperature rise occurs but also the current redistribution due to the smaller cross section. Thus, the current share in other longitudinal wires of the scale model increases and their temperature rises. Scale and mathematical models are constructed with allowance for laboratory clamps and supporting elements that participate in the removal of heat from the investigated wires. Obtained study results of the scale model allow to draw a conclusion about the adequacy of the mathematical model and its correspondence to the real physical process. These conclusions indicate the possibility of applying mathematical model for calculating real catenary, taking into account the uneven contact wear wire and the armature of the contact network.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. 3333
Author(s):  
Maria del Cisne Feijóo ◽  
Yovana Zambrano ◽  
Yolanda Vidal ◽  
Christian Tutivén

Structural health monitoring for offshore wind turbine foundations is paramount to the further development of offshore fixed wind farms. At present time there are a limited number of foundation designs, the jacket type being the preferred one in large water depths. In this work, a jacket-type foundation damage diagnosis strategy is stated. Normally, most or all the available data are of regular operation, thus methods that focus on the data leading to failures end up using only a small subset of the available data. Furthermore, when there is no historical precedent of a type of fault, those methods cannot be used. In addition, offshore wind turbines work under a wide variety of environmental conditions and regions of operation involving unknown input excitation given by the wind and waves. Taking into account the aforementioned difficulties, the stated strategy in this work is based on an autoencoder neural network model and its contribution is two-fold: (i) the proposed strategy is based only on healthy data, and (ii) it works under different operating and environmental conditions based only on the output vibration data gathered by accelerometer sensors. The proposed strategy has been tested through experimental laboratory tests on a scaled model.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
M. D. Robertson ◽  
J. Gao ◽  
P. M. Regular ◽  
M. J. Morgan ◽  
F. Zhang

AbstractAnomalous local temperature and extreme events (e.g. heat-waves) can cause rapid change and gradual recovery of local environmental conditions. However, few studies have tested whether species distribution can recover following returning environmental conditions. Here, we tested for change and recovery of the spatial distributions of two flatfish populations, American plaice (Hippoglossoides platessoides) and yellowtail flounder (Limanda ferruginea), in response to consecutive decreasing and increasing water temperature on the Grand Bank off Newfoundland, Canada from 1985 to 2018. Using a Vector Autoregressive Spatiotemporal model, we found the distributions of both species shifted southwards following a period when anomalous cold water covered the northern sections of the Grand Bank. After accounting for density-dependent effects, we observed that yellowtail flounder re-distributed northwards when water temperature returned and exceeded levels recorded before the cold period, while the spatial distribution of American plaice has not recovered. Our study demonstrates nonlinear effects of an environmental factor on species distribution, implying the possibility of irreversible (or hard-to-reverse) changes of species distribution following a rapid change and gradual recovery of environmental conditions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 179
Author(s):  
Giovanni Amaral ◽  
Pedro Mello ◽  
Lucas do Carmo ◽  
Izabela Alberto ◽  
Edgard Malta ◽  
...  

The present work highlights some of the dynamic couplings observed in a series of tests performed in a wave basin with a scaled-model of a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine (FOWT) with semi-submersible substructure. The model was moored by means of a conventional chain catenary system and an actively controlled fan was used for emulating the thrust loads during the tests. A set of wave tests was performed for concomitant effects of not aligned wave and wind. The experimental measurements illustrate the main coupling effects involved and how they affect the FOWT motions in waves, especially when the floater presents a non-negligible tilt angle. In addition, a frequency domain numerical analysis was performed in order to evaluate its ability to capture these effects properly. The influence of different modes of fan response, floater trim angles (changeable with ballast compensation) and variations in the mooring stiffness with the offsets were investigated in the analysis. Results attest that significant changes in the FOWT responses may indeed arise from coupling effects, thus indicating that caution must be taken when simplifying the hydrodynamic frequency-domain models often used as a basis for the simulation of FOWTs in waves and in optimization procedures for the design of the floater and mooring lines.


2022 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 60
Author(s):  
Yuan Lin ◽  
Jin Guo ◽  
Haonan Li ◽  
Hai Zhu ◽  
Haocai Huang ◽  
...  

The hydrodynamic performance of a novel hovering autonomous underwater vehicle, the autonomous underwater helicopter (AUH), with an original disk-shaped hull (HG1) and an improved fore–aft asymmetric hull (HG3), is investigated by means of computational fluid dynamics with the adoption of overlapping mesh method. The hydrodynamic performance of the two hull shapes in surge motion with variation of the angle of attack is compared. The results show that HG3 has less resistance and higher motion stability compared to HG1. With the angle of attack reaching 10 degrees, both HG1 and HG3 achieve the maximum lift-to-drag ratio, which is higher for HG3 compared to HG1. Furthermore, based on the numerical simulation of the plane motion mechanism test (PMM) and according to Routh’s stability criterion, the horizontal movement and vertical movement stability indexes of HG1 and HG3 (GHHG1=1.0, GVHG1=49.7, GHHG2=1.0, GVHG3=2.1) are obtained, which further show that the AUH has better vertical movement stability than the torpedo-shaped AUV. Furthermore, the scale model tail velocity experiment indirectly shows that HG3 has better hydrodynamic performance than HG1.


Author(s):  
Claudio A. Rodríguez ◽  
F. Taveira-Pinto ◽  
P. Rosa-Santos

A new concept of wave energy device (CECO) has been proposed and developed at the Hydraulics, Water Resources and Environment Division of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto (FEUP). In a first stage, the proof of concept was performed through physical model tests at the wave basin (Rosa-Santos et al., 2015). These experimental results demonstrated the feasibility of the concept to harness wave energy and provided a preliminary assessment of its performance. Later, an extensive experimental campaign was conducted with an enhanced 1:20 scale model of CECO under regular and irregular long and short-crested waves (Marinheiro et al., 2015). An electric PTO system with adjustable damping levels was also installed on CECO as a mechanism of quantification of the WEC power. The results of regular waves tests have been used to validate a numerical model to gain insight into different potential configurations of CECO and its performance (López et al., 2017a,b). This paper presents the results and analyses of the model tests in irregular waves. A simplified approach based on spectral analyses of the WEC motions is presented as a means of experimental assessment of the damping level of the PTO mechanism and its effect on the WEC power absorption. Transfer functions are also computed to identify nonlinear effects associated to higher waves and to characterize the range of periods where wave absorption is maximized. Furthermore, based on the comparison of the present experimental results with those corresponding to a linear numerical potential model, some discussions are addressed regarding viscous and other nonlinear effects on CECO performance.


2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Simone Ambrosini ◽  
Ilmas Bayati ◽  
Alan Facchinetti ◽  
Marco Belloli

Abstract This paper presents the methodological and technical aspects of the implementation of a hardware-in-the-loop experimental setup, suitable to simulate the dynamics of a floating system in wind tunnel experiments. The presented work is based on the specific application of a floating offshore wind turbine scale model, even if the approach holds also for floating systems in general, being subjected to the simultaneous action of wind and waves. The setup is based on a two degrees-of-freedom system, providing the motion of the floating system along surge and pitch. With reference to the implementation of the HIL test methodology the following topics are thoroughly analyzed: scaling issues, numerical issues, mechanical system characterization, force corrections, measurement, and signal processing. For each of these topics the methodological approach is presented, and the technical issues are described. A subset of results is then reported to show the effectiveness of such experimental apparatus, for different sea states: still water, regular, and irregular waves.


Author(s):  
Thanh Dam Pham ◽  
Junbae Kim ◽  
Byoungcheon Seo ◽  
Rupesh Kumar ◽  
Youngjae Yu ◽  
...  

Abstract A pilot floating offshore wind turbine project of Korea was proposed for installing in the East Sea of Korea. The prototype is a semisubmersible platform supporting a 750-kW wind turbine. A scaled model was tested in the basin tank of the University of Ulsan at scale ratio 1:40. The 750-kW floating offshore wind turbine was modeled by using the NREL-FAST code. Numerical results were validated by comparing with those of the test model. This paper analyzes dynamic responses and loads of the wind turbine system under extreme environmental conditions. Extreme environmental conditions based on metocean data of East Sea Korea. Extreme responses and extreme loads are important data for designing the structure of the 750 kW semi-submersible floating offshore wind turbine.


Author(s):  
Daniel Cueva ◽  
Marcos Donato ◽  
Fernando Torres ◽  
Felipe Campos ◽  
Jose A. Ferrari ◽  
...  

After the boom of converted floating, production, storage and offloading systems, based on the old VLCC design, many engineering institutes started thinking about optimum dimension for new units. However, these new FPSOs designs carried out worldwide concerns about good seakeeping behavior when considering general weather conditions, in order to apply their project to different locations around the globe. Analyzing the Brazilian specific conditions, it was verified that, considering waves, current and wind characteristics, the dimension proportions found in the projected units were not the best options, mostly because of the swell waves influence. Thus, in a cooperative project between University of Sao Paulo and PETROBRAS, the best dimensions for a specific case were studied, based on real premises from Campos Basin. During the study, the roll motion, which usually creates operational limits during hard environmental conditions, was focused. It was possible not only to evaluate the best breath and draught relations, but also the inclusion of a structured skirt in the ship bilge. The influence of different shapes in the ship’s bow and stern were also evaluated, showing interesting results regarding the forces applied on the vessel. All the analyses were conducted considering numerical analysis, and the final dimensions were applied to a scaled model, which allowed to verify the real behavior of the projected unit in a test basin. As a conclusion, it was possible to define an optimized hull for the PETROBRAS premises, giving them a real design to be used in future explorations.


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