• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.313-323
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• 2013

Offshore floating structures have so-called moonpool in the centre area for the purpose of drilling, installation of subsea structures, recovery of Remotely-Operated Vehicle (ROV) and divers. However, this vertical opening has an effect on the operating performance of floating offshore structure in the vicinity of moonpool resonance frequency; piston mode and sloshing mode. Experimental study based on model test was carried out. Moonpool resonance of floating offshore structure on fixed condition and motion free condition were investigated. And, the effect of cofferdam which is representative inner structure inside moonpool was examined. Model test results showed that Molin's theoretical formula can predict moonpool resonance on fixed condition quite accurately. However, motion free condition has higher resonance frequency when it is compared with that of motion fixed. The installation of cofferdam moves resonance frequency to higher region and also generates secondary resonance at lower frequency. Furthermore, it was found that cofferdam was the cause of generating waves in the longitudinal direction when the vessel was in beam sea.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.36 no.10
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• pp.5-19
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• 2020

With increasing demand for offshore structures, the demand for temporary structures to help the offshore construction work has increased. A cofferdam is a temporary barrier to stop the inflow of water in the construction site and allows working in the dry condition when the construction is done within the water. However, it is a major cause of construction delays and increased costs because additional works are required to block the water inflow. Recently, in order to overcome the limitations of the conventional cofferdam methods and to increase economic efficiency, a large-diameter steel cofferdam method has been proposed which can be installed quickly in the seabed by using the suction pressure. In this circular steel cofferdam method, the top side of the cofferdam including the top-lid is always exposed above the sea level in order to use it as a water barrier, unlike the conventional suction bucket foundation. After installation, the top-lid of the cofferdam is removed and the water filled inside the cofferdam is discharged to make the interior dry condition. In this study, the circular steel cofferdam with a 5 m inner diameter was fabricated and the installation tests were conducted at the Saemaguem test site. During the experiment, variation of suction pressure, leakage between connections, structure deformation, and inclination of the steel cofferdam were measured and post-analyzed. This study verified the new circular steel cofferdam method and confirmed that the suction installation method can be successfully used for various purposes on offshore structures.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.10
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• pp.7-17
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• 2019

With increasing demand for large offshore infrastructures, suction cofferdams have been large, and the lid stiffener arrangement for a suction cofferdam has become a key element in cofferdam design to constrain the flexural deformation effectively. This study analyzed the changes in the structural behavior of a lid for a suction cofferdam due to lid stiffeners to provide insights into effective stiffener arrangements. By investigating conventional suction anchors, several stiffener patterns of a lid for a polygonal suction cofferdam were determined and analyzed. The structural performance of the stiffened lids was estimated by comparing the stress and deformation, and the reaction distributions on the edge of lid were investigated to analyze the effects of the stiffener arrangement on the lid-wall interface. Finite element analysis showed that radial stiffeners contribute dominantly to decreasing the stress and vertical deflection of the lids, but the stiffeners cause an increase in shear forces between the lid and wall; the forces are concentrated on the lid near the areas reinforced with radial stiffeners, which is negative to lid-wall connection design. On the other hand, inner and outer circumferential stiffeners show little reinforcement effects in themselves, while they can help reduce the stress and deformation when arranged with partial radial stiffeners simultaneously.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.53-60
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• 2013

A drillship is a representative floating offshore installation. The boom in oil and gas field development has dramatically increased the demands for drillships. Drillships have a moonpool in the center area of the ship for the purpose of drilling. This moonpool has an effect on the seakeeping performance of a drillship in the vicinity of the resonance frequency. Because of the moonpool, drillships act in different resonance modes, called the sloshing mode and piston mode. The objective of this study was to find the moonpool effect on the motion of a drillship through the motion analysis of a currently operating modern compact drillship. The predicted resonance frequencies based on Molin's theoretical formula, Fukuda's empirical formula, and BEM-based numerical analysis are compared. The accuracy of the predictions using the theoretical and empirical formulas is compared with the numerical analysis and evaluated. In the case of the piston mode, the difference between the resonance frequency from theoretical formula and the resonance frequency from the numerical analysis is analyzed. The resonance frequency formula for more a complex moonpool geometry such as a moonpool with a cofferdam is necessarily emphasized.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.37-48
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• 2010

In this study, the seepage flow monitoring method by the hydraulic head loss rate was developed for the purpose of application to offshore construction site enclosed by cofferdams in which seepage force varies periodically. The amount of the hydraulic head loss rate newly defined in this graph was in a range between 0 and 1. The zero of the rate means the existence of flow with no seepage resistance. The 1 of the rate means no seepage flow through the ground. The closer to 1 the coefficient of determinant in the hydraulic head loss graph is, the more the ground through which seepage water flows is stable. The closer to 0 the coefficient of determinant in the hydraulic head loss graph is, the more the ground through which seepage water flows was unstable and the higher the possibilities of existence of empty space or of occurrence of piping on the seepage flow pass in the ground is. The hydraulic head loss graph makes it possible to monitor sensitively the situation of seepage flow state, and the graph helps to understand easily the seepage flow state at the specific section on the whole cofferdam.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.34 no.10
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• pp.51-60
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• 2018

Recently, a cylindrical cut-off wall was proposed as a new technology for temporary offshore works. The cut-off wall has a cylindrical shape, so seepage analyses are necessary to analyze the effect of wall shape. In this study, a numerical analysis was performed to investigate the seepage discharge inside cut-off walls. The numerical modeling was verified by comparing with the theoretical solution for the cofferdam with double sheet piles. Two different flow conditions were compared between 2-dimensional flow and axisymmetric flow. The results showed that the discharge of the axisymmetric flow was about 1.55 times larger than that of 2-dimensional plain flow. A parametric study was carried out by varying wall radius, penetration depth of the wall, and total head difference between in and outside of the wall. The discharge decreased with the increase of the penetration depth and the wall radius. Finally, the design equations were suggested to determine the discharge for the preliminary design of the cylindrical cut-off wall.