Numerical Investigation of Deepwater S-Lay Pipeline Under Freak Waves

Author(s):  
Pu Xu ◽  
Shunfeng Gong

Abstract Freak wave is an extreme sea state with unexpected and huge wave height, which becomes a potential risk for lay barge and offshore pipeline during deepwater installation. In order to investigate the dynamic responses of deepwater S-lay pipeline induced by freak waves, this study developed a comprehensive numerical model with the particular consideration of the freak wave effect. An enhanced superposition method of combined transient wave trains and random wave trains was presented, and a series of freak wave trains were generated. The induced pipelay vessel motions were simulated by the use of displacement response amplitude operators (RAOs). The pipe–stinger roller interactions in the overbend and the cyclic contacts between the pipeline and seabed soil in the touchdown zone (TDZ) were fully taken into consideration. The developed S-lay model was subsequently utilized to calculate the dynamic responses of the pipelay vessel and offshore pipeline under random waves and freak waves for a comparison. The results illustrated the remarkable influence of freak waves on the systematic behaviors of deepwater S-laying pipeline, which offer a significant theoretical basis for the pipe structure design and pipelay operation safety.

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 119
Author(s):  
Pu Xu ◽  
Zhixin Du ◽  
Shunfeng Gong

Freak waves are an extreme marine environment factor in offshore structure design and become a potential risk, particularly for laying oil-gas pipelines in deep waters. The objective of this study was to reveal the freak wave effects on dynamic behaviors of offshore pipelines for deepwater installation. Thus, a dedicated finite element model (FEM) for deepwater pipeline installation by the S-lay method was developed with special consideration of freak waves. The FEM also took pipelay vessel motions, pipe–stinger roller interactions, and the cyclic contacts between the pipeline and seabed soil into account. Real vessel and stinger data from an actual engineering project in the South China Sea were collected to obtain an accurate simulation. Moreover, an effective superposition approach of combined transient wave trains and random wave trains was introduced, and various types of freak wave trains were simulated. Extensive numerical analyses of a 12 inch gas pipeline being installed into a water depth of 1500 m were implemented under various freak wave conditions. The noticeable influences of freak waves on the pipeline and seabed responses were identified, which provides significant awareness of offshore pipelines for deepwater installation design and field operation monitoring.


Author(s):  
Hanhong Hu ◽  
Ning Ma ◽  
Xuefeng Wang ◽  
Xiechong Gu

The main purposes of investigating the generation of the rogue waves in offshore engineering include: 1) prediction of its occurrence to protect the offshore structure from attacking; 2) the experimental investigation of rogue waves/structure interaction for the structure design. The latter one calls high requirement of wave generation and calculation. In this paper, we establish a spatial domain model of fourth order nonlinear Schro¨dinger (NLS) equation for describing deep-water wave trains in moving coordinate system. For the first purpose mentioned above, this paper presents the evolution of random wave trains in real sea state described by the Joint North Sea Wave Project (JONSWAP) power spectrum numerically, which is governed by the NLS equation. The parameters of the spectrum are evaluated to discuss their effect on the occurrence of rogue waves. For the second purpose to generate rogue waves in experimental tank efficiently, the transient wave is focused for its allowance of precise determination of concentration place/time. First we simulate the three-dimensional transient waves in the numerical tank modeling the deepwater basin with double-side multi-segmented wave-maker in Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) with linear superposing theory. To discuss its nonlinearity for the guidance of experiment, the transient wave is set as the initial condition of the NLS equation and the difference from the linear simulation is presented, which could be given as the suggestion to the preparation of experiment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuxiang Ma ◽  
Changfu Yuan ◽  
Congfang Ai ◽  
Guohai Dong

Abstract The generation of two freak waves in a broadband and a narrowband random series registered in the experiments of Li, J. X., Li, P. F., and Liu, S. X. (2013, “Observations of Freak Waves in Random Wave Field in 2D Experimental Wave Flume,” China Ocean Eng., 27(5), pp. 659–670) is precisely reconstructed using a fully non-hydrostatic water wave model. The simulation results indicate that even when the background spectral bandwidths are different, the evolution processes of the two freak waves are similar. Both freak waves emerge quickly during the transition from normal states to extreme events. The freak waves can persist over a long distance, i.e., approximately 5 peak wavelengths. The reconstructed time series in both the backward and forward locations at which the freak waves were recorded reveal that the largest freak wave crests were not captured in the experiment. The freak waves gradually emerged from an intense wave group. The waves developed quickly during the transition from a normal state to an extreme event. Very deep troughs were also formed in the evolution process. The two freak waves were actually generated via different spectral bandwidth processes, but the generation mechanisms of the rogue waves were similar. By analyzing the time series of the freak wave groups, the formation of the freak waves is found to result from the combined effect of the dispersive focusing, the third-order resonant wave interactions, and the higher harmonics.


1997 ◽  
Vol 119 (3) ◽  
pp. 146-150 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Skourup ◽  
N.-E. O. Hansen ◽  
K. K. Andreasen

The area of the Central North Sea is notorious for the occurrence of very high waves in certain wave trains. The short-term distribution of these wave trains includes waves which are far steeper than predicted by the Rayleigh distribution. Such waves are often termed “extreme waves” or “freak waves.” An analysis of the extreme statistical properties of these waves has been made. The analysis is based on more than 12 yr of wave records from the Mærsk Olie og Gas AS operated Gorm Field which is located in the Danish sector of the Central North Sea. From the wave recordings more than 400 freak wave candidates were found. The ratio between the extreme crest height and the significant wave height (20-min value) has been found to be about 1.8, and the ratio between extreme crest height and extreme wave height has been found to be 0.69. The latter ratio is clearly outside the range of Gaussian waves, and it is higher than the maximum value for steep nonlinear long-crested waves, thus indicating that freak waves are not of a permanent form, and probably of short-crested nature. The extreme statistical distribution is represented by a Weibull distribution with an upper bound, where the upper bound is the value for a depth-limited breaking wave. Based on the measured data, a procedure for determining the freak wave crest height with a given return period is proposed. A sensitivity analysis of the extreme value of the crest height is also made.


Author(s):  
Hidetaka Houtani ◽  
Takuji Waseda ◽  
Wataru Fujimoto ◽  
Keiji Kiyomatsu ◽  
Katsuji Tanizawa

A method to produce freak waves with arbitrary spectrum in a fully directional wave basin is presented here. This is an extension of Waseda, Houtani and Tanizawa at OMAE 2013[1], which used “HOSM-WG” based on the higher-order spectral method (HOSM). We used the following three methods to improve the HOSM-WG in [1]: “separation of free waves from bound waves,” “using Biesel’s transfer function in wavenumber space” and “using Schaffer’s 2nd-order wave maker control method.” Modulational wave trains, freak waves in unidirectional irregular waves and freak waves in short-crested irregular waves were generated in a wave basin. The experimental results using the improved HOSM-WG were compared to the HOSM simulation, and good agreements were found. The effectiveness of the improved HOSM-WG was ascertained. We showed that the difference between HOSM-WG and HOSM simulations became larger as wave steepness, frequency bandwidth of the spectrum or directional spreading became larger.


1986 ◽  
Vol 1 (20) ◽  
pp. 68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans Peter Riedel ◽  
Anthony Paul Byrne

According to wave theories the depth limited wave height over a horizontal seabed has a wave height to water depth ratio (H/d) of about 0.8. Flume experiments with monochromatic waves over a horizontal seabed have failed to produce H/d ratios greater than 0.55. However designers still tend to use H/d 0.8 for their design waves. Experiments have been carried out using random wave trains in the flume over a horizontal seabed. These experiments have shown that the limiting H/d ratio of 0.55 applies equally well to random waves.


2015 ◽  
Vol 104 ◽  
pp. 480-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinxuan Li ◽  
Jiqing Yang ◽  
Shuxue Liu ◽  
Xinran Ji

Author(s):  
Dmitry Chalikov ◽  
Alexander V. Babanin

An extremely large (‘freak’) wave is a typical though quite a rare phenomenon observed in the sea. Special theories (for example, the modulational instability theory) were developed to explain the mechanics and appearance of freak waves as a result of nonlinear wave-wave interactions. This paper demonstrates that freak wave appearance can be also explained by superposition of linear modes with a realistic spectrum. The integral probability of trough-to-crest waves is calculated by two methods: the first one is based on the results of a numerical simulation of wave field evolution, performed with one-dimensional and two-dimensional nonlinear models. The second method is based on the calculation of the same probability over ensembles of wave fields, constructed as a superposition of linear waves with random phases and a spectrum similar to that used in nonlinear simulations. It is shown that the integral probabilities for nonlinear and linear cases are of the same order of values. One-dimensional model was used for performing thousands of exact short-term simulations of evolution of two superposed wave trains with different steepness and wavenumbers to investigate the effect of wave crests merging. The nonlinear sharpening of merging crests is demonstrated. It is suggested that such effect may be responsible for appearance of typical sharp crests of surface waves, as well as for the wave breaking.


2021 ◽  
Vol 290 ◽  
pp. 02013
Author(s):  
Yu Xiang-jun ◽  
Li Qing-hong ◽  
Li Mao-lin

Freak waves are both extremely large waves and highly transient time. Such a wave may lead to damage of ships to deaths. In this paper, to describe the connection between freak wave and wave essential factor, we use WAVEWATCH III model simulating “New Year Wave” in the North Sea to explore freak wave, with the importing of ECMWF re-analysis wind field. By this way, we successfully simulate the formation of freak wave in the random wave. Analysis shows large wave steepness and small directional spread angle are necessary conditions for freak waves to easily occur. By analyzing the wave spectrum, it is found that the wave energy is distributed in a small range, and the propagation direction is relatively concentrated.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 114
Author(s):  
Dag Myrhaug ◽  
Muk Chen Ong

This article derives the time scale of pipeline scour caused by 2D (long-crested) and 3D (short-crested) nonlinear irregular waves and current for wave-dominant flow. The motivation is to provide a simple engineering tool suitable to use when assessing the time scale of equilibrium pipeline scour for these flow conditions. The method assumes the random wave process to be stationary and narrow banded adopting a distribution of the wave crest height representing 2D and 3D nonlinear irregular waves and a time scale formula for regular waves plus current. The presented results cover a range of random waves plus current flow conditions for which the method is valid. Results for typical field conditions are also presented. A possible application of the outcome of this study is that, e.g., consulting engineers can use it as part of assessing the on-bottom stability of seabed pipelines.


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