• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.59 no.3
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• pp.157-163
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• 2022

An automatic mooring system for a ship consists of a vacuum suction pad and a mechanical part, enabling quick and safe mooring of a ship. In the development of a mooring system, the design of a vacuum suction pad is a key to secure enough mooring forces and achieve stable operation of a mooring system. In the vacuum suction pad, properly designing its rubber seal determines the performance of the suction pad. Therefore, it is necessary to appropriately design the rubber seal for maintaining a high-vacuum condition inside the pad as well as achieving its mechanical robustness for long-time use. Finite element analysis for the design of the rubber seal requires the use of an appropriate strain energy function model to accurately simulate mechanical behavior of the rubber seal material. In this study, we conducted simple uniaxial tensile testing of Chloroprene Rubber (CR) to explore the strain energy function model best-fitted to its experimentally measured engineering strain-stress curves depending on various temperature environments. This study elucidates the temperature-dependent mechanical behaviors of CR and will be foundational to design rubber seal for an automatic mooring system under various temperature conditions.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.42 no.1 s.139
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• pp.43-49
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• 2005

in this paper a dolphin-fender moored pontoon-type floating structure in shallow water depth is studied focusing on mooring force. The pontoon-type floating structure is 500m long, 300m wide. The structure has partially non-uniform drafts of 2.0m and 3.0m. The employed mooring system is a guyed frame type dolphin-fender system. The 1/125 scale model fender system is made of rubber tube to have hi-linear load deflection characteristics. A series of model tests has been conducted focusing on motion and fender force responses in regular and irregular waves at KRISO's ocean engineering basin Non-linear numerical simulation of fender reaction force has been carried out and the results are compared with those of model tests. The simulated rigid body motion and mooring forces also have been compared with the test results.

• 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.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.179-187
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• 2013

Floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facilities are used at most of the offshore oil fields worldwide. FPSO usage is expected to grow as oil fields move to deeper water, thus requiring the reliability and stability of mooring wires and risers in extreme environmental conditions. Except for the case of predictable attack angles of external loadings, FPSO facilities with turret single point mooring (SPM) systems are in general use. There are two types of turret systems: permanent systems and disconnectable turret mooring systems. Extreme environment criteria for permanent moorings are usually based on a 100-year return period event. It is common to use two or three environments including the 100-year wave with associated wind and current, and the 100-year wind with associated waves and current. When fitted with a disconnectable turret mooring system, FPSOs can be used in areas where it is desirable to remove the production unit from the field temporarily to prevent exposure to extreme events such as cyclones or large icebergs. Static and dynamic mooring analyses were performed to evaluate the stability of a spider buoy after disconnection from a turret during cyclone environmental conditions.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.462-467
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• 2008

In this paper, we investigated the design method of mooring system in ultra deep sea and carried out the conceptual design for offshore West Africa oil field in ultra deep sea of 3000 meters. Recently, it was feasible to design and install the offshore floating structures in deep sea of up to 2000 meters. Due to the simplicity, two-point mooring design is fully utilized. Force-excursion curves are throughly examined to find out the feasibility of various combinations of mooring lines. Free length and pretension effects are discussed. It is found that composite materials including synthetic fiber rope may be good solution for ultra deep sea mooring design.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.413-433
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• 2017

The dynamic and structural responses of a 1000-m long circular submerged floating tunnel (SFT) with both ends fixed under survival irregular-wave excitations are investigated. The floater-mooring nonlinear and elastic coupled dynamics are modeled by a time-domain numerical simulation program, OrcaFlex. Two configurations of mooring lines i.e., vertical mooring (VM) and inclined mooring (IM), and four different buoyancy-weight ratios (BWRs) are selected to compare their global performances. The result of modal analysis is included to investigate the role of the respective natural frequencies and elastic modes. The effects of various submergence depths are also checked. The envelopes of the maximum/minimum horizontal and vertical responses, accelerations, mooring tensions, and shear forces/bending moments of the entire SFT along the longitudinal direction are obtained. In addition, at the mid-section, the time series and the corresponding spectra of those parameters are also presented and analyzed. The pros and cons of the two mooring shapes and high or low BWR values are systematically analyzed and discussed. It is demonstrated that the time-domain numerical simulation of the real system including nonlinear hydro-elastic dynamics coupled with nonlinear mooring dynamics is a good method to determine various design parameters.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.287-297
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• 2019

The recent increase in crude oil trading has led to an increase in the workings of SPM for crude oil carriers. VLCCs generally encounter difficulty entering port due to limitations in terms of sea depth and maneuverability. The SPM is a system that allows mooring to the buoy located in the outer sea for such vessels. However, the buoy is more affected by relatively external forces because of their of shore location. Therefore, the safety assessment of SPM is particularly important as it can lead to large oil pollution disasters in the event of SPM accidents. Despite this, in the implementation of the Marine Traffic Safety Audit Scheme in Korea, there exists no guidance for SPM. In this study, a SPM mooring safety assessment is performed using OPTIMOOR, a numerical analysis program, so as to understand the mooring characteristics of SPM. As a result, it is confirmed that the tension of mooring lines and hull movement in the SPM are greatly affected by the encounter angles with external forces. In addition, it is found that the maximum tension of the mooring line is elevated as the water depth becomes shallower through sensitivity analysis. According to SPM characteristics, which has a large influence on the encounter angle, this study has proposed an amendment to setting criteria in the implementation of the Maritime Traffic Safety Audit Scheme which could improve the reliability and accuracy of mooring safety assessments.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.178-201
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• 2019

The appropriate design of a mooring system to maintain the position of an offshore structure in deep sea under various environmental loads is important. Fatigue design of the mooring line considering OPB/IPB(out-of-plane bending/in-plane bending) became an essential factor after the incident of premature fatigue failure of the mooring chain due to OPB/IPB in the Girassol region in West Africa. In this study, mooring line fatigue analysis was performed considering the OPB/IPB of a spread moored FPSO in deep sea. The tension of the mooring line was derived by hydrodynamic analysis using the de-coupled analysis method. The floater motion time histories were calculated under the assumption that the mooring line behaves in quasi-static manner. Additional time domain analysis was carried out by prescribing the obtained motions on top of the selected critical mooring line, which was determined based on spectral fatigue analysis. In addition, nonlinear finite element analysis was performed considering the material nonlinearities, and both the interlink stiffness and stress concentration factors were derived. The fatigue damage to the chain surface was estimated by combining both the hydrodynamic and stress analysis results.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.810-818
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• 2020

A moored floating structure may exhibit resonant motion responses to low-frequency excitations. Similar to the resonant responses of many vibration systems, the motion amplitude of a moored floating structure is significantly affected by the damping of the entire system. In such cases, the damping contributed by the mooring lines sometimes accounts for as much as 80% of the total damping. While the damping induced by catenary mooring lines is well-investigated, few studies have been conducted on the damping induced by taut mooring lines, especially one partly embedded in soil. The present study develops a simple but accurate model for estimating the damping contributed by mooring lines. A typical type of taut mooring line was used as the reference and the hydrodynamic drag force and soil resistance were taken into consideration. The proposed model was validated by comparing its predictions with those of a previously developed model and experimental measurements obtained by a physical model. Case studies and sensitivity studies were also conducted using the validated model. The damping induced by the soil resistance was found to be considerably smaller than the hydrodynamic damping. The superposition of the wave frequency motion on the low-frequency motion was also observed to significantly amplify the damping induced by the mooring lines.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.40 no.1
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• pp.20-27
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• 2003

The FPSO is moored by mooring lines to keep the position of it. The nonlinear motion analysis of the moored FPSO must be carried out in the initial design stage because sea environments affect motion of it. In this paper, the mathematical model is based on the slow motion maneuvering equations in the horizontal plane considering wave, current and wind forces. The direct integration method is employed to estimate wave loads. The current forces are calculated by using mathematical model of MMG. The turret mooring forces are quasi-statically evaluated by using the catenary equation. The coefficients of a model for wind forces are calculated from Isherwood's experimental data and the variation of wind speed is estimated by wind spectrum according to the guidelines of API-RP2A. The nonlinear motions of FPSO are simulated under external forces due to wave, current, wind including mooring forces in time domain.