• Computational Structural Engineering
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.50-59
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• 2004

The Thunder Horse semi-submersible intended for production of hydrocarbons at Thunder Horse field in the Gulf of Mexico(GOM), Mississippi Canyon Block 778. The field is located in water depth of 1850m, 240km SE of New Orleans.(ref. Fig.1) These areas have estimated 1.5billion barrels reported. Also there are world class subsea hardwares with 15ksi Guideline less Trees, High pressure 8-12" Flow lines, Insulated Steel Catenary Risers with Flexible Connectors, 150km of Flow lines, and 100km Control & Injection Umbilicals(ref. Fig.2). (omitted)

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.29-35
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• 2013

The exploration areas for maritime resources such as oil and natural gas have gradually moved to deep sea areas. It has become difficult to use existing fixed marine structures, which are very costly to build, because that have reached the uppermost economic limit. Therefore, floating marine structures and flexible marine structures are preferred. In particular, slender bodies such as risers and pipes are important parts of ocean depth marine structures. These slender bodies have more flexible structural characteristics in deep water areas because their overall length becomes longer and thediameter/length slenderness ratio gets smaller. In addition, the dynamic behavior of slender bodies becomes complicated as external forces such as tides and waves act on it directly. In this study, in order to solve these problems, we performed model tests in a 2-D wave basin using flexible slender bodies with different modulus of elasticity values. As a result, we compiled statistics and compared the behaviors of flexible slender bodies with respect to the effect of the modulus of elasticity. We expect that the results could be used as reference data for the design of structures with flexible elements.

• 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.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.137-147
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• 2024

Green hydrogen presents a sustainable and environmentally friendly solution for clean energy production and transportation. This study aims to identify the optimal profile of green hydrogen transportation risers originating from a floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) integrated with a hydrogen production facility. Employing the Cummins equation, a fully coupled dynamic analysis for FOWT with a flexible riser was conducted, with the tower, mooring lines, and risers described using a lumped mass line model. Initially, motion response amplitude operators (RAOs) were compared with openly published results to validate the numerical model for the FOWT. Subsequently, a parametric study was conducted on the length of the buoyancy module section and the upper bare section of the riser by comparing the riser's tension and bending moment. The results indicated that as the length of the buoyancy module increases, the maximum tension of the riser decreases, while it increases with the lengthening of the bare section. Furthermore, shorter buoyancy modules are expected to experience less fatigue damage, with the length of the bare section having a relatively minor impact on this phenomenon. Consequently, to ensure safety under extreme environmental conditions, both the upper bare section and the buoyancy module section should be relatively short.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.194-207
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• 2021

Vortex-Induced Vibration (VIV) is a major contributor to the fatigue damage of marine risers which are often arranged in an array configuration. In addition to helical strakes and fairings, studies have been strived in searching for possible VIV suppression techniques. Inspired by giant Saguaro Cacti, flexible cylinders of different cactus-shaped cross sections were tested in a water tunnel facility, and test results showed that cactus-like body shapes reduced VIV responses of a cylinder at no cost of significant increase of drag. A series of experiments were conducted on a pair of two tandem-arranged flexible cylinders and an array of four cylinders in a square configuration to investigate the effects of wake on the dynamic responses of cylinders and the VIV mitigation effectiveness of the cactus-like body shape. Results showed that the cylinders in a square configuration, either at the upstream or downstream positions, might have larger dynamic responses than those of a single cylinder. The cactus-like body shape could mitigate VIV responses of cylinders at upstream positions in an array configuration; however, similar to helical strakes, the mitigation efficiency was reduced on downstream cylinders. Note that the cactus-like cross-sectional shape investigated was not optimized for VIV suppression. The present study indicates that the modification of the cross-sectional shape of a cylinder to a well-designed cactus-like shape may be used as an alternative technique to mitigate the VIV of marine risers.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.250-258
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• 2018

Free Standing Hybrid Riser (FSHR) is comprised of vertical steel risers and Flexible Jumpers (FJ). They are jointly connected to a submerged Buoyancy Can (BC). There are several factors that have influence on the behavior of FSHR such as the span distance between an offshore platform and a foundation, BC up-lift force, BC submerged location and FJ length. An optimization method through a parametric study is presented. Firstly, descriptions for the overall arrangement and characteristics of FSHR are introduced. Secondly, a flowchart for optimization of FSHR is suggested. Following that, it is described how to select reasonable ranges for a parametric study and determine each of optimal configuration options. Lastly, numerical analysis based on this procedure is performed through a case study. In conclusion, the relation among those parameters is analyzed and non-dimensional parametric ranges on optimal arrangements are suggested. Additionally, strength analysis is performed with variation in the configuration.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.101-107
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• 2009

The VIV (Vortex-Induced Vibration) analysis of a flexible cylindrical structure under locally strong shear flow is presented. The model is made of Teflon and has 9.5m length, 0.0127m diameter, and 0.001m wall thickness. 11 2-dimensional accelerometers are installed along the model. The experiment has been conducted at the ocean engineering basin in the University of Tokyo in which uniform current can be generated. The model is installed at about 30 degree of slope and submerged by almost overall length. Local shear flow is made by superposing uniform current and accelerated flow generated by an impeller. The results of frequency and modal analysis are presented.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.111-120
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• 2017

It is generally acknowledged that the Steel Catenary Riser (SCR) is the most cost-effective riser type for deep-water offshore fields among various risers, including the SCR, flexible riser, and hybrid riser. However, in West Africa, the SCR type may not be suitable for FPSO systems because the large vertical motion of the floater brings about a considerable riser dynamic response. In this paper, an SCR system is designed for the FPSO in the West African field, where the use of a hybrid riser has been preferred. The proposed SCR configuration fulfills the design criteria of the API, such as the strength check and fatigue life. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis is also carried out to improve the certainty in the SCR design of a deep-water FPSO. The parameters affecting the strength and fatigue performance of the SCR are considered.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.57 no.3
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• pp.403-423
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• 2016

The challenges involved with fatigue damage assessment of steel catenary riser (SCR) in the touchdown zone (TDZ) are primarily due to the non-linear behaviour of the SCR-seabed interaction, considerable uncertainty in SCR-seabed interaction modelling and geotechnical parameters. The issue of fatigue damage induced by the cyclic movements of the SCR with the seabed has acquired prominence with the touch down point (TDP) interaction in the TDZ. Therefore, the SCR-seabed response is critical for reliable estimation of fatigue life in the TDZ. Various design approaches pertaining to the lateral pipe-soil resistance model are discussed. These techniques have been applied in the finite element model that can be used to analyse the lateral SCR-seabed interaction under hydrodynamic loading. This study investigates the sensitivity of fatigue performance to geotechnical parameters through a parametric study. In this study, global analyses are performed to assess the influence of vertical linear seabed springs, the lateral seabed model and the non-linear seabed model, including trench evolution into seabed, seabed normalised stiffness, re-penetration offset parameter and soil suction resistance ratio, on the fatigue life of SCRs in the TDZ.