NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES ON THE SLOW DRIFT MOTIONS AND THE MOORING LINE RESPONSES OF TRUSS SPAR PLATFORMS

• Main Author: AHMED ALI, MONTASIR OSMAN
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2012
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/2843/1/Thesis_FINAL.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/2843/

An efficient methodology has been developed for the dynamic analysis of offshore floating structures. In this methodology, special attention was given to the second order difference frequency forces and responses. According to this numerical scheme, a MATLAB program named TRSPAR was developed to predict the dynamic responses of truss spar platform in time domain. In this program, the truss spar platform was modeled as a rigid body with three degrees of freedom. Hydrodynamics of the structure, which include the linear and second order wave forces, mean drift forces, added mass, radiation damping, wave drift damping and system stiffness were included in the program. Current and wind forces were also considered showing their effects on the slow drift responses. The wave forces, including inertia and drag forces, were calculated using Morison equation assuming the wave field as undisturbed. An efficient time domain integration scheme was adopted based on Newmark Beta method. Comprehensive experimental studies were conducted and the numerical predictions were systematically compared with model test results. These comparisons consisted of structure’s dynamic responses in different environmental conditions and two structural situations. The first situation was the structure with intact mooring lines and the other one was the structure under mooring line failure. The responses of the platform with mooring line system damage were investigated with the emphasis on finding the critical effects of line failure on the resonant responses. The effects of the second order difference frequency wave forces on the truss spar motion characteristics were examined numerically. Published numerical results were used to verify the developed numerical model in predicting the truss spar dynamic responses when subjected to combined wave, current and wind forces. The effects of strengthening mooring line system on the motion characteristics of the structure were examined numerically. For the assessment of the fluid to mooring nonlinear interactions, a deterministic approach based on lumped mass method with equations of dynamic equilibrium and continuity was adopted. Finally, parametric studies on deepwater mooring line analysis have been conducted for investigating the contributions of the various design parameters on mooring line tension. The experimental results verified the validity of the developed numerical scheme for prediction of the wave frequency and low frequency motions of the truss spar platform with its intact mooring and in the case of mooring line damage condition. RMSD values for the numerical and the experimental results show that the simulated wave frequency responses (WFR) trend was relatively agreed well with the experiments compared to the low frequency responses (LFR). For the intact mooring line condition, RMSD values for the WFR ranged from 109.9 to 182.4 while for LFR were ranged from 499.6 to 550.2. The same has been noticed in the mooring line damage condition in which RMSD values ranged from 107.4 to 323.6 and 209.1 to 1074 for WFR and LFR respectively. With regard to the peak responses, good accuracy has been achieved between the predictions and the measurements. The percentage errors for the peak responses in the intact mooring and the mooring line damage conditions were ranged from 9.5% to 17.3%.