• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.63-69
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• 2013

The mooring lines of a floating type offshore plant are known to show wide banded and bimodal responses. These phenomena come from a combination of low and high frequency random load components, which are derived from the drift-restoring motion characteristic and wind- sea, respectively. In this study, fatigue models were applied to predict the fatigue damage of mooring lines under those loads, and the result were compared. For this purpose, seven different fatigue damage prediction models were reviewed, including mathematical formula. A FPSO (floating, production, storage, and offloading) with a $4{\times}4$ spread catenary mooring system was selected as a numerical model, which was already installed at an offshore area of West Africa. Four load cases with different combinations of wave and wind spectra were considered, and the fatigue damage to each mooring line was estimated. The rain flow fatigue damage for the time process of the mooring tension response was compared with the results estimated by all the fatigue damage prediction models. The results showed that both Benasciutti-Tovo and JB models could most accurately predict wide banded bimodal fatigue damage to a mooring system.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.813-820
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• 2010

The spread mooring system for FPSO is developed to explore deep sea area, in which swell is dominant. It is known that the tension response of mooring lines in this sea area shows bimodal spectrum. Assuming normal distribution of tension profile and Rayleigh distribution of tension amplitude, the power spectral density function (PSD) of the mooring tension under the bimodal stationary random process is applied for the calculation of spectrum fatigue. Three popular methods, which are simple summation method, combined spectrum method and Jioa-Moan method, are used to combine fatigue damages from bimodal spectrum characteristics. Each damage value is compared with damage using Rainflow Cycle Counting (RCC) method which is believed to be close to exact solution. Vanmarcke' parameter and RMS(Root Mean Square) ratio are employed to assess relative damage variations between from RCC method and from three combination methods. Finally the most reliable fatigue damage combining method for spread mooring system is suggested.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.23 no.6
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• pp.61-66
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• 2009

For a spread-moored FPSO (Floating Production, Storage, & Off-loading) subjected to environmental excitation from waves, current, and wind, a procedure to determine optimum length and stiffness of mooring lines is suggested using quasi-static frequency domain response analyses. Coupled relations between design parameters are closely examined. In consideration of this, optimized design parameters are proposed based on minimum weight condition. The initial design parameters for numerical analyses are calculated using the static catenary equation of mooring lines. It is demonstrated the line tension and vessel's offset are influenced by the mooring line length and stiffness. Accordingly it is suggested the optimum vessel's offset range should be determined considering line fatigue damage. The availability and limitation of the application of quasi-static analysis method for spread mooring system are explained by comparing the result of time domain analysis with one of frequency domain analysis.