scholarly journals The Quasi-Static Response of Moored Floating Structures Based on Minimization of Mechanical Energy

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 960
Author(s):  
Chun Bao Li ◽  
Mingsheng Chen ◽  
Joonmo Choung

It is essential to design a reasonable mooring line length that ensures quasi-static responses of moored floating structures are within an acceptable level, and that reduces the cost of mooring lines in the overall project. Quasi-static responses include the equilibrium position and the line tension of a moored floating structure (also called the mean value in a dynamic response), etc. The quasi-static responses derived by the classic catenary equation cannot present mooring–seabed interaction and hydrodynamic effects on a mooring line. While a commercial program can predict reasonable quasi-static responses, costly modeling is required. This motivated us to propose a new method for predicting quasi-static responses that minimizes the mechanical energy of the whole system based on basic geometric parameters, and that is easy to implement. In this study, the mechanical energy of moored floating structures is assumed to be the sum of gravitational–buoyancy potential energy, kinetic energy induced by drag forces, and spring potential energy derived by line tension. We introduce fundamental theoretical background for the development of the proposed method. We investigate the effect of quasi-static actions on mooring response, comparing the proposed method’s results with those from the catenary equation and ABAQUS software. The study reveals the shortcomings of the catenary equation in offshore applications. We also compare quasi-static responses derived by the AQWA numerical package with the results calculated from the proposed method for an 8 MW WindFloat 2 type of platform. Good agreement was drawn between the proposed method and AQWA. The proposed method proves more timesaving than AQWA in terms of modeling of mooring lines and floaters, and more accurate than the catenary equation, and can be used effectively in the early design phase of dimension mooring lengths for moored floating structures.

Author(s):  
Yuanchuan Liu ◽  
Yao Peng ◽  
Decheng Wan

With the increasing demand of floating structures in offshore, coastal and marine renewable energy engineering, the interaction between the mooring system and floating structure becomes more and more important. In this paper, motion responses of a semi-submersible platform with mooring system under regular wave conditions are investigated numerically by a viscous flow solver naoe-FOAM-SJTU based on the open source toolbox OpenFOAM. Influence of the mooring system on the platform motion responses is evaluated in two different ways. Investigations are covered for analysis methods adopted for solving mooring lines and the length of each part of a multi-component mooring line. Several important conclusions are drawn.


Author(s):  
Junfeng Du ◽  
Hongchao Wang ◽  
Anteng Chang ◽  
Mingyuan Sun ◽  
Junrong Wang ◽  
...  

Abstract Mooring lines are the most commonly used station-keeping systems for floating platforms, and the pre-tension of the mooring lines has significant effect on the dynamics of floater/mooring system. However, during the model test, which is the most important method for the research on the floater/mooring system, the pre-tension of the designed mooring lines in the basin are always significantly different with the target values of the ideal model due to the error of the manufacture of the mooring lines and positon locating of the anchor point and so on. As a result, the adjustment of the pretension of the mooring lines based on the ideal model is an important task during the model test. The pre-tension is always adjusted by increasing or decreasing mooring line length. While all the mooring lines are connected with the floater and coupled with each other, pre-tension adjustment is an unwarranted and cyclic process which often wastes a lot of time. This paper presents a novel methodology for regulating the mooring line pre-tension based on matrix calculation. The increment matrix of the mooring line tension can be obtained by increasing or decreasing the length of each mooring line in the numerical model. Assuming that the increment the mooring line tension is linear to the change of the mooring line length, the adjustment amount of each mooring line length can be calculated from the difference of the real pre-tension and the target pre-tension. However, the mooring line tension is always nonlinear to the mooring line length. Calculating the increment matrix of the mooring line tension and adjustment of the mooring line length is also a cyclic process until the error of real pre-tension of the model in the basin and target value can meet the accuracy requirement. This method is used in a model of a mooring system with 12 mooring lines which are connected with a semi-submersible platform. The test results show that the pre-tension of mooring lines can be adjusted to the target value quickly based on the method proposed in this paper.


Author(s):  
Yu-ho Rho ◽  
Chul-hee Jo ◽  
Do-youb Kim

Recently, focus has been placed on ocean energy resources as environmental concerns regarding the exploitation of hydrocarbons are increasing. The enormous energy potential in tidal current power fields has been exploited by installing floating tidal current power turbines. Due to other floating structures operating within a limited area, stationkeeping is needed in order to keep the motions of the floating structures within permissible limits. In this study, methods for selecting and optimizing the mooring system for floating tidal current power systems in shallow water are investigated. The mooring system provides restoring forces and moments on a floating structure, pulling the structure back toward its equilibrium position. Typically, the mooring lines are segmented in order to optimize the force and displacement characteristics known as the mooring line characteristics. The mooring system concepts investigated in this study include the distributed mass, clump weight, and buoyancy element mooring systems.


Author(s):  
Daniele Dessi ◽  
Sara Siniscalchi Minna

A combined numerical/theoretical investigation of a moored floating structure response to incoming waves is presented. The floating structure consists of three bodies, equipped with fenders, joined by elastic cables. The system is also moored to the seabed with eight mooring lines. This corresponds to an actual configuration of a floating structure used as a multipurpose platform for hosting wind-turbines, aquaculture farms or wave-energy converters. The dynamic wave response is investigated with numerical simulations in regular and irregular waves, showing a good agreement with experiments in terms of time histories of pitch, heave and surge motions as well as of the mooring line forces. To highlight the dynamical behavior of this complex configuration, the proper orthogonal decomposition is used for extracting the principal modes by which the moored structure oscillates in waves giving further insights about the way waves excites the structure.


Author(s):  
Toshifumi Fujiwara

The author proposed the Vortex-induced Motion (VIM) simulation method of a semi-submersible type offshore floating structure using the wake oscillator model based on the potential theory and model test data. This method is easy to use for the time-domain simulation of the VIM amplitude, that is in-line, transverse and yaw motions, of the semi-submersible floater in case of being demented mooring safety assessment of that. The simulation method presented in this paper was modified the single circular floater simulation method with the wake oscillator model for a semi-submersible floater. Some empirical parameters, obtained from the systematic model tests used many semi-submersible floaters, are only decided from external form of the semi-submersible floaters, that is the column / lower hull ratio etc. This simulation method is able to indicate general VIM trend and to be used for the assessment of mooring lines safety in the design stage. Using the VIM amplitude simulation, fatigue damage of mooring lines on one sample semi-submersible floater was investigated as an example.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (24) ◽  
pp. 8303
Author(s):  
Shi Liu ◽  
Yi Yang ◽  
Chengyuan Wang ◽  
Yuangang Tu ◽  
Zhenqing Liu

Floating wind turbine vibration controlling becomes more and more important with the increase in wind turbine size. Thus, a novel three-bifurcated mooring system is proposed for Spar-type floating wind turbines. Compared with the original mooring system using three mooring lines, three-bifurcated sub-mooring-lines are added into the novel mooring system. Specifically, each three-bifurcated sub-mooring-line is first connected to a Spar-type platform using three fairleads, then it is connected to the anchor using the main mooring line. Six fairleads are involved in the proposed mooring system, theoretically resulting in larger overturning and torsional stiffness. For further improvement, a clump mass is attached onto the main mooring lines of the proposed mooring system. The wind turbine surge, pitch, and yaw movements under regular and irregular waves are calculated to quantitatively examine the mooring system performances. A recommended configuration for the proposed mooring system is presented: the three-bifurcated sub-mooring-line and main mooring line lengths should be (0.0166, 0.0111, 0.0166) and 0.9723 times the total mooring line length in the traditional mooring system. The proposed mooring system can at most reduce the wind turbine surge movement 37.15% and 54.5% when under regular and irregular waves, respectively, and can at most reduce the yaw movement 30.1% and 40% when under regular and irregular waves, respectively.


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.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 82
Author(s):  
Hui Yang ◽  
Yun-Peng Zhao ◽  
Chun-Wei Bi ◽  
Yong Cui

Enclosure aquaculture is a healthy and ecological aquaculture pattern developed in recent years to relieve the pressure due to the wild fish stock decline and water pollution. The object of this paper was a floating rope enclosure, which mainly consisted of floaters, mooring lines, sinkers and a net. In order to optimize mooring design factors, the hydrodynamic responses of the floating rope enclosure with different mooring systems in combined wave-current were investigated by experimental and numerical methods. Physical model experiments with a model scale of 1:50 were performed to investigate the hydrodynamic characteristics of a floating rope enclosure with 12 mooring lines. Based on the lumped mass method, the numerical model was established to investigate the effects of mooring design factors on the mooring line tension, force acting on the bottom, and the volume retention of the floating rope enclosure. Through the analysis of numerical and experimental results, it was found that the maximum mooring line tension of the floating rope enclosure occurs on both sides of the windward. Increasing the number of mooring lines on the windward side is helpful to reduce the maximum mooring line tension. Waves and current both have an influence on the mooring line tension; in contrast, currents have a more obvious effect on the mooring line tension than waves. However, the influence of the wave period on the maximum mooring line tension is small. The force endured by the bottom of the floating rope enclosure also changes periodically with the wave period. Yet, the maximum force endured by the bottom of floating rope enclosure occurred at the windward and leeward of the structure. The volume retention of the floating rope enclosure increased with the increasing amount of mooring lines.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuanhui Wang ◽  
Chuntai Zou ◽  
Fuguang Ding ◽  
Xianghui Dou ◽  
Yanqin Ma ◽  
...  

FPSO is widely used during the deep-sea oil and gas exploration operations, for which it is an effective way to keep their position by means of positioning mooring (PM) technology to ensure the long-term reliability of operations, even in extreme seas. Here, a kind of dynamic positioning (DP) controller in terms of structural reliability is presented for the single-point turret-moored FPSOs. Firstly, the mathematical model of the moored FPSO in terms of kinematics and dynamics is established. Secondly, the catenary method is applied to analyze the mooring line dynamics, and mathematical model of one single mooring line is set up based on the catenary equation. Thereafter, mathematical model for the whole turret mooring system is established. Thirdly, a structural reliability index is defined to evaluate the breaking strength of each mooring line. At the same time, control constraints are also considered to design a state feedback controller using the backstepping technique. Finally, a series of simulation tests are carried out for a certain turret-moored FPSO with eight mooring lines. It is shown in the simulation results that the moored FPSO can keep its position well in extreme seas. Besides, the FPSO mooring line tension is reduced effectively to ensure mooring lines safety to a large extent in harsh sea environment.


Author(s):  
Yuan Hongtao ◽  
Zeng Ji ◽  
Chen Gang ◽  
Mo Jian ◽  
Zhao Nan

This paper applies 3D potential theory and non-linear time domain coupled analysis method to analyze motion response of FPSO and dynamic response of mooring line of single mooring system. In addition, respectively to calculate mooring line tension of tension type and composite mooring line type and added buoy in mooring line. There the paper analyze different mooring lines to affect on the weight of single point mooring system of deepwater FPSO. Which expects to provide a theoretical basis for single point mooring system design and weight control.


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