Among offshore floaters used to develop offshore resources, FPSO and FSO have a storage function whereas semi-submersible, Spar and TLP have only production function. The floaters with the storage function such as FPSO and FSO are designed as the typical ship type concept compared to the other floaters with small water plane area.
In order to design the floaters for offshore resource development, it is needed to estimate the seakeeping performance under operating condition and survival conditions and then carry out the structural design based on seakeeping performance results. The environment conditions of 1yr, 10yrs, 100yrs or 1,000 yrs return periods are used based on the metocean data of the installation field to evaluate the seakeeping performance under operating and survival conditions. In general, the wave conditions with the maximum wave heights for each return periods are selected on each wave contour lines in the wave scatter diagram. Then the seakeeping performance is evaluated from the seakeeping model test.
However, it was observed that the wave with the pitch forcing period, where the wave length is close to the ship length, is more important than the wave with the maximum wave height after several accidents caused by the green water in Northern North Sea and Norwegian Sea. Therefore, it became a common practice to include not only the wave conditions with maximum wave heights for each return period but also the wave conditions with the pitch forcing period to evaluate the seakeeping performance for offshore development floaters. Ship type floaters such as FPSO are more likely to experience higher impact force due to the large frontal area accompanied by large heave and pitch motions in head sea and bow quartering seas. Recently, it was reported that in an accident in North Sea of UK sector, the damage at the bow of the FPSO is caused due to the steep waves. Afterwards, studies on the steep waves have been made in several institutes such as UK HSE.
In this study, the effect of the impact load (so called slapping load) by the steep waves acting on the FPSO bow is investigated throughout the model test. For measurement of the pressure and impact force on the frontal area, a bow-shaped panel was fabricated with the pressure and force sensors, and installed on the bow starboard side of the model FPSO. During the model test campaign, the impact load was investigated using the steep waves with Hw/λ greater than 1/16 in addition to the general wave conditions with maximum wave heights.
Consequently, it is confirmed in the model test that the impact loads acting on the FPSO bow are significantly increased with the steep waves (Hw/λ > 1/16) compared to the general wave conditions. Therefore, it is necessary to consider whether the steep waves are additionally included in the wave conditions to estimate the seakeeping performance and how to apply the impact loads acting on the FPSO bow from the steep waves in structure design.
Effective Formula for Impact Damping Ratio for Simulation of Earthquake-induced Structural Pounding
