• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.24 no.5
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• pp.628-636
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• 2018

Because large buoys are mainly made of steel, they are heavy and vulnerable to corrosion by sea water. This makes buoy installation and maintenance difficult. Moreover, vessel collision accidents with buoys and damage to vessels due to the material of buoys (e.g., steel) are reported every year. Recently, light buoys adopting eco-friendly and lightweight materials have come into the spotlight in order to solve the previously-mentioned problems. In Korea, a new lightweight buoy with a 7-Nautical Mile lantern adopting expanded polypropylene (EPP) and aluminum to create a buoyant body and tower structure, respectively, was developed in 2017. When these light buoys are operated in the ocean, the visibility and angle of light from the lantern installed on the light buoys changes, which may cause them to function improperly. Therefore, research on the performance of light buoys is needed since the weight distribution and motion characteristics of these new buoys differ from conventional models. In this study, stability estimation and motion analyses for newly-developed buoys under various environmental conditions considering a mooring line were carried out using ANSYS AQWA. Numerical simulations for the estimation of wind and current loads were performed using commercial CFD software, Siemens STAR-CCM+, to increase the accuracy of motion analysis. By comparing the estimated maximum significant motions of the light buoys, it was found that waves and currents were more influential in the motion of the buoys. And, the estimated motions of the buoys became larger as the sea state became worser, which might be the reason that the peak frequencies of the wave spectra got closer to those of the buoys.

• Journal of Navigation and Port Research
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.427-436
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• 2018

In this study, experimental and numerical analysis were performed on the survivability of a long pipe-type buoy structure in waves. The buoy structure is an articulated tower consisting of an upper structure, buoyancy module, and gravity anchor with long pipes forming the base frame. A series of experiment were performed in the ocean engineering basin of KRISO with the scaled model of 1/ 22 to evaluate the survivability of the buoy structure at West Sea in South Korea. Survival condition was considered as the wave of 50 year return period. Additional experiments were performed to investigate the effects of current and wave period. The factors considered for the evaluation of the buoy's survival were the pitch angle of the structure, anchor reaction force, and the number of submergence of the upper structure. Numerical simulations were carried out with the OrcaFlex, the commercial program for the mooring analysis, with the aim of performing mutual validation with the experimental results. Based on the evaluation, the behavior characteristics of the buoy structure were first examined according to the tidal conditions. The changes were investigated for the pitch angle and anchor reaction force at HAT and LAT conditions, and the results directly compared with those obtained from numerical simulation. Secondly, the response characteristics of the buoy structure were studied depending on the wave period and the presence of current velocity. Third, the number of submergence through video analysis was compared with the simulation results in relation to the submergence of the upper structure. Finally, the simulation results for structural responses which were not directly measured in the experiment were presented, and the structural safety discussed in the survival waves. Through a series of survivability evaluation studies, the behavior characteristics of the buoy structure were examined in survival waves. The vulnerability and utility of the buoy structure were investigated through the sensitivity studies of waves, current, and tides.