• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.297-309
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• 2018

After an accident involving mooring link failures in an offloading buoy, verification of the fatigue safety in terms of the out-of-plane bending (OPB) and in-plane bending (IPB) moments has become a key engineering item in the design of various floating offshore units. The mooring links for an 8 MW floating offshore wind turbine were selected for this study. To identify the OPB stiffness (OPB moment versus interlink angle), a numerical simulation model, called the 3-link model, is usually composed of three successive chain links closest to the fairlead or chain hawse. This paper introduces two numerical simulation techniques for the 3-link analyses. The conventional and advanced approaches are both based on the prescribed rotation approach (PRA) and direct tension approach (DTA). Comparisons of the nominal stress distributions, OPB stiffnesses, hotspot stress curves, and stress concentration curves are presented. The multiple link analyses used to identify the tension angle versus interlink angle require the OPB stiffness data from the 3-link analyses. A convergence study was conducted to determine the minimum number of links for a multi-link analysis. It was proven that 10 links were sufficient for the multi-link analysis. The tension angle versus interlink angle relations are presented based on multi-link analyses with 10 links. It was found that the subsequent results varied significantly according to the 3-link analysis techniques.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.255-270
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• 2023

One of the main parameters that affect the design of suction caisson-supported offshore structures is uplift behavior. Pull-out of suction caissons is profoundly utilized as the offshore wind turbine foundations accompany by a tensile resistance that is a function of a complex interaction between the caisson dimensions, geometry, wall roughness, soil type, load history, pull-out rate, and many other parameters. In this paper, a parametric study using a 3-D finite element model (FEM) of a single offshore suction caisson (SOSC) surrounded by saturated soil is performed to examine the effect of some key factors on the tensile resistance of the suction bucket foundation. Among the aforementioned parameters, caisson geometry and uplift loading as well as the difference between the tensile resistance and suction pressure on the behavior of the soil-foundation system including tensile capacity are investigated. For this purpose, a full model including 3-D suction caisson, soil, and soil-structure interaction (SSI) is developed in Abaqus based on the u-p formulation accounting for soil displacement (u) and pore pressure, P.The dynamic responses of foundations are compared and validated with the known results from the literature. The paper has focused on the effect of geometry change of 3-D SOSC to present the soil-structure interaction and the tensile capacity. Different 3-D caisson models such as triangular, pentagonal, hexagonal, and octagonal are employed. It is observed that regardless of the caisson geometry, by increasing the uplift loading rate, the tensile resistance increases. More specifically, it is found that the resistance to pull-out of the cylinder is higher than the other geometries and this geometry is the optimum one for designing caissons.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.615-621
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• 2007

Wind power generation is one of the promising gateways that will solve the energy crisis in the future. The wind power generator studied so far is limited to static interpretation in the areas related to tower. This study broadly sets the form of tower as tubular and jacket, identifies the characteristics of each and aims to find and apply their trend to in actual design and manufacturing process. This paper identified the resonance frequency of tower at each mode and studied their features. Furthermore, this study identified the characteristics of the load that occurs in operation and the effect of additional mass incurring when installed in sea, and it compared the two types of tower and was able to predict their trend.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.32 no.11
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• pp.5-19
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• 2016

This paper presents the results from three-dimensional finite element (FE) analysis undertaken to provide insight into the lateral behaviors of piled gravity base foundation (GBF) for offshore wind turbine. The piled GBF was originally developed to support the gravity based foundation in very soft clay soil. A GBF is supported by five piles in a cross arrangement to achieve additional vertical bearing capacity. This study considered four different cases including a) single pile, b) three-by-three group pile (with nine piles), c) cross-arrangement group pile (with five piles), and d) piled GBF. All the cases were installed in homogenous soft clay soil with undrained shear strength of 20 kPa. From the numerical results, p-y curves and thus P-multiplier was back-calculated. For the group pile cases, the group effect decreased with increasing the number of piles. Interestingly, for the piled GBF, the P-multipliers showed a unique trend, compared to the group pile cases. This study concluded that the global lateral behaviour of the piled GBF was influenced strongly by the interaction between GBF and contacted soil surface.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.28 no.7
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• pp.1201-1208
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• 2022

In general, to maximize the supply and efficiency of floating offshore wind power generation energy, the motion caused by wave attenuation of the substructure must be reduced. According to previous studies, the motion response was reduced due to the vortex viscosity generated by the damping plate installed in the lower structure among the waves. In this study, a 5 MW semi-submersible OC5 platform and two platforms with attenuation plates were designed, and free decay experiments and numerical calculations were performed to confirm the effect of reducing motion due to vortex viscosity. As a result of the model test, when the heave free decay tests were conducted at drop heights of 30 mm, 40 mm, and 50 mm, compared with the OC5 platform, the platform with two types of damping plates attached had relatively improved motion damping performance. In the model test and numerical calculation results, the damping plate models, KSNU Plate 1 and KSNU Plate 2, were 1.1 times and 1.3 times lower than OC5, respectively, and the KSNU Plate 2 platform showed about two times better damping performance than OC5. This study shows that the area of the damping plate and the vortex viscosity are closely related to the damping rate of the heave motion.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.1516-1523
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• 2015

This study investigates the stress concentration factor of a door opening of an offshore tubular steel tower. The tubular steel tower is subjected to eight (8) different load combinations which are deemed to be normal and abnormal operating cases for the ultimate limit state and serviceability limit state. Analytical method using parametric equations and numerical method of finite element are used to analyze the stress components as well as any translations or rotations where the flow of stress is interfered with. A finite element program, ABAQUS, is used for the numerical method analysis. Trends of the stress concentration in the localized area near the opening are studied, and points of interest are defined for comparison among three different cases of tubular steel tower: without door and without reinforcement; without door opening and with reinforcement; and with door opening and with reinforcement. Findings are tabulated and shown in illustrative charts, and conclusions are made.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.241-257
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• 2020

The rapid proliferation of oil/gas drilling and wind turbine installations with jack-up rig-formed structures increases structural safety requirements, due to the greater risks of operational collisions during use of these structures. Therefore, current industrial practices and regulations have tended to increase the required accidental collision design loads (impact energies) for jack-up rigs. However, the existing simplified design approach tends to be limited to the design and prediction of local members due to the difficulty in applying the increased uniform impact energy to a brace member without regard for the member's position. It is therefore necessary to define accidental load estimation in terms of a reasonable collision scenario and its application to the structural response analysis. We found by a collision probabilistic approach that the kinetic energy ranged from a minimum of 9 MJ to a maximum 1049 MJ. Only 6% of these values are less than the 35 MJ recommendation of DNV-GL (2013). This study assumed and applied a representative design load of 196.2 MN for an impact load of 20,000 tons. Based on this design load, the detailed design of a leg structure was numerically verified via an FE analysis comprising three categories: linear analysis, buckling analysis and progressive collapse analysis. Based on the numerical results from this analysis, it was possible to predict the collapse mode and position of each member in relation to the collision load. This study provided a collision strength assessment between attendant vessels and a jack-up rig based on probabilistic collision scenarios and nonlinear structural analysis. The numerical results of this study also afforded reasonable evaluation criteria and specific evaluation procedures.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.73-80
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• 2013

The dynamic characteristics of west coast sand were investigated in order to evaluate the design properties of the offshore wind turbine foundations to be constructed in the West Sea. Torsional shear tests were performed at different confining pressures and densities on specimens constituted by the dry fluviation method. The strain-dependent shear modulus and damping curves were obtained, together with modulus degradation curves. The results show that the confining pressure is more influential on the dynamic characteristics of the sand than the density. It was also found that the dynamic curves from this study were similar to those proposed by others. The modulus degradation ratio $G/G_{1st}$ varies slightly at a small strain level, but increases significantly once beyond the intermediate strain level.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.189-195
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• 2019

In this study, experiments with a floater using flapping foils were performed to develop a new station keeping system that can maintain its position in waves without mooring lines. The foils applied to this system generate thrust using wave energy. In this experiment, the motion of the floater was analyzed in three different wave periods. Sixteen foils were attached to the cylindrical floater. The thrust of each foil was controlled by changing its azimuth angle, and three cases were compared. Based on the previous data, we made more precise measurements and found an optimal model for stationkeeping under each wave condition. We verified the potential of this new stationkeeping system using flapping foils, and conclusions were drawn from the results.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.43-58
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• 2021

In the present work, a 3D numerical model is proposed to study local scouring around single vertical piers with different cross-section shapes under steady-current flow. The model solves the flow field and sediment transport processes using a coupled approach. The flow field is obtained by solving the Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) equations in combination with the k-ω SST turbulence closure model and the sediment transport is considered using both bedload and suspended load models. The proposed model is validated against the empirical measurements of local scour around single vertical piers with circular, square, and diamond cross-section shapes obtained from the literature. The measurement of scour depth in equilibrium condition for the simulations reveal the differences of 4.6%, 6.7% and 13.1% from the experimental measurements for the circular, square, and diamond pier cases, respectively. The model displayed a remarkable performance in the prediction of scour around circular and square piers where horseshoe vortices (HSVs) have a leading impact on scour progression. On the other hand, the maximum deviation was found in the case of the diamond pier where HSVs are weak and have minimum impact on the formation of local scour. Overall, the results confirm that the prediction capability of the present model is almost independent of the strength of the formed HSVs and pier cross-section shapes.