• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.179-193
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• 2017

Dynamic response analysis of offshore triceratops with stiffened buoyant legs under impact and non-impact waves is presented. Triceratops is relatively new-generation complaint platform being explored in the recent past for its suitability in ultra-deep waters. Buoyant legs support the deck through ball joints, which partially isolate the deck by not transferring rotation from legs to the deck. Buoyant legs are interconnected using equally spaced stiffeners, inducing more integral action in dispersing the encountered wave loads. Two typical nonlinear waves under very high sea state are used to simulate impact and non-impact waves. Parameters of JONSWAP spectrum are chosen to produce waves with high vertical and horizontal asymmetries. Impact waves are simulated by steep, front asymmetric waves while non-impact waves are simulated using Stokes nonlinear irregular waves. Based on the numerical analyses presented, it is seen that the platform experiences both steady state (springing) and transient response (ringing) of high amplitudes. Response of the deck shows significant reduction in rotational degrees-of-freedom due to isolation offered by ball joints. Weak-asymmetric waves, resulting in non-impact waves cause steady state response. Beat phenomenon is noticed in almost all degrees-of-freedom but values in sway, roll and yaw are considerably low as angle of incidence is zero degrees. Impact waves cause response in higher frequencies; bursting nature of pitch response is a clear manifestation of the effect of impact waves on buoyant legs. Non-impact waves cause response similar to that of a beating phenomenon in all active degrees-of-freedom, which otherwise would not be present under normal loading. Power spectral density plots show energy content of response for a wide bandwidth of frequencies, indicating an alarming behaviour apart from being highly nonlinear. Heave, being one of the stiff degrees-of-freedom is triggered under non-impact waves, which resulted in tether tension variation under non-impact waves as well. Reduced deck response aids functional requirements of triceratops even under impact and non-impact waves. Stiffened group of buoyant legs enable a monolithic behaviour, enhancing stiffness in vertical plane.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.345-360
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• 2018

Increasing demand for large-sized Floating, Storage and Regasification Units (FSRUs) for oil and gas industries led to the development of novel geometric form of Buoyant Leg Storage and Regasification Platform (BLSRP). Six buoyant legs support the deck and are placed symmetric with respect to wave direction. Circular deck is connected to buoyant legs using hinged joints, which restrain transfer of rotation from the legs to deck and vice-versa. Buoyant legs are connected to seabed using taut-moored system with high initial pretension, enabling rigid body motion in vertical plane. Encountered environmental loads induce dynamic tether tension variations, which in turn affect stability of the platform. Postulated failure cases, created by placing eccentric loads at different locations resulted in dynamic tether tension variation; chaotic nature of tension variation is also observed in few cases. A detailed numerical analysis is carried out for BLSRP using Mathieu equation of stability. Increase in the magnitude of eccentric load and its position influences fatigue life of tethers significantly. Fatigue life decreases with the increase in the amplitude of tension variation in tethers. Very low fatigue life of tethers under Mathieu instability proves the severity of instability.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.21-30
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• 1985

The tension leg platform (TLP) is a kind of compliant structures, and is also a type of moored stable platform with a buoyancy exceeding the weight because of having tensioned vertical anchor cables. In this paper, among the various kinds of tension leg structures, Deep Oil Technology (DOT) TLP was analyzed because it has large-displacement portions of the immersed surface such as vertical corner pontoons and small-diameter elongated members such as cross-bracing. It also has results of hydraulic model tests, comparable with theorectical analysis. Because of the vertical axes of symmetry in the three vertical buoyant legs and because there are no larger horizontal buoyant members between these three vertical members, it was decided to develop a numerical algorithm which would predict the dynamic response of the DOT TLP using the previously developed numerical algorithm Floating Vessel Response Simulation (FVRS) for vertically axisymmetric bodies of revolution. In addition, a linearized hydroelastic Morison equation subroutine would be developed to account for the hydrodynamic pressure forces on the small member cross bracing. Interaction between the large buoyant members or small member cross bracings is considered to be negligible and is not included in the analysis. The dynamic response of the DOT TLP in the surge mode is compared with the results of the TLP algorithm for various combinations of diffraction and Morison forces and moments. The results which include the Morison equation are better than the results for diffraction only. This is because the vertically axisymmetric buoyant members are only marginally large enough to consider diffractions effects. The prototype TLP results are expected to be more inertially dominated.