• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.2 no.2
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• pp.99-113
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• 2012

Steel Catenary Risers (SCR) are the simplest and often the most economic solution compared to other riser types such as flexible pipe, riser towers, top tensioned risers, etc. The top of a SCR is connected to the host platform riser porch. The other end of the SCR connects to flowlines from subsea wells. The riser touchdown point (TDP), which is the location along the riser where contact with the sea floor first occurs, exhibits complex behaviors and often results in compression and fatigue related issues. Heave dynamic responses of semisubmersibles in extreme and operating sea states are crucial for feasibility of SCR application. Recent full field measurement results of a deep draft semisubmersible in Hurricane Gustav displayed the considerable discrepancies in heave responses characteristics between the measured and the simulated results. The adequacy and accuracy of the simulated results from recognized commercial software should be examined. This finding raised the awareness of shortcomings of current commercial software and potential risk in mega investment loss and environmental pollutions due to SCR failures. One main objective of this paper is to attempt to assess the importance and necessity of accounting for viscous effects during design and analysis by employing indicator of viscous parameter. Since viscous effects increase with nearly third power of significant wave height, thus newly increased metocean criteria per API in central Gulf of Mexico (GoM) and even more severe environmental conditions in Western Australia (WA) call for fundamental enhancements of the existing analysis tools to ensure reliable and robust design. Furthermore, another aim of this paper is to address the impacts of metocean criteria and design philosophy on semisubmersible hull sizing in WA and GoM.