Seismic Design of Jumpers: The Coupling Conundrum

Author(s):  
Marcello Cademartori ◽  
Omar Zanoli ◽  
Eric J. Parker

Subsea developments in seismically active areas present a number of engineering challenges. One such item, which is frequently underestimated, is design of jumpers to resist earthquake loading. Jumpers connect quite dissimilar pieces of subsea equipment, for example heavy manifolds on deep foundations, PLETs on mudmats and wellheads supported on slender well casings. If the structures connected have a different dynamic response (e.g. manifold, PLET and wellheads with different fundamental periods), the jumpers receive additional loads from the out of phase structure movements. Such “seismic coupling” is particularly an issue for high pressure high temperature (HPHT) fields, where stiff heavy jumpers are combined with large manifolds. This paper discusses possible approach to evaluate coupling, and provides practical advice for subsea designers. Specifically we address coupling from a point of view of the fundamental period of the connected structures and jumpers, making reference to results of dynamic modeling and codified experience from nuclear power plant design. Differentiation between cases which require fully coupled treatment, and those in which a more straightforward separation and analysis of the individual subsystems is very important to producing an efficient design in reasonable time frame. These aspects are illustrated using a case history from our project files. Coupled dynamic analysis of primary (supporting) and secondary (supported) systems may not be always feasible or desirable. The number of supported structures may be such that a coupled analysis may create computational difficulties. In addition to this, data regarding the secondary system may be not available at the time of the analysis of the primary system with the result that development of a coupled model would be not applicable. In cases where an attempt is made to develop complex coupled systems, sanity checks of such a system may be not an easy task. For these and other reasons, complete analysis of complex coupled systems is rarely performed. The objective of this paper is to explore the conditions under which an uncoupled analysis is justified and to give simplified indication to check the results of coupled models. The paper presents a case study of a manifold-jumper-PLET. The system is evaluated using a standard uncoupled approach in which seismic actions are computed for the manifold, jumper and PLET considered as separate structures. The resulting actions are compared to those from a “coupled analysis” in which the full system is analyzed. The standard uncoupled analysis is found to be unconservative in cases where the jumper’s natural period of vibration is similar to that of the manifold or PLET. This approach shows promise as a means of identifying cases where coupled analysis is required to correctly assess seismic forces.

2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 674-704 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rong-Hua Zhang ◽  
Antonio J. Busalacchi ◽  
David G. DeWitt

Abstract The El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) has been observed to exhibit decadal changes in its properties; the cause and implication of such changes are strongly debated. Here the authors examine the influences of two particular attributors of the ocean–atmospheric system. The roles of stochastic forcing (SF) in the atmosphere and decadal changes in the temperature of subsurface water entrained into the mixed layer (Te) in modulating ENSO are compared to one another using coupled ocean–atmosphere models of the tropical Pacific climate system. Two types of coupled models are used. One is an intermediate coupled model (ICM) and another is a hybrid coupled model (HCM), both of which consist of the same intermediate ocean model (IOM) with an empirical parameterization for Te, constructed via singular value decomposition (SVD) analysis of the IOM simulated historical data. The differences in the ICM and HCM are in the atmospheric component: the one in the ICM is an empirical feedback model for wind stress (τ), and that in the HCM is an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM; ECHAM4.5). The deterministic component of atmospheric τ variability, representing its signal response (τSig) to an external SST forcing, is constructed statistically by an SVD analysis from a 24-member ensemble mean of the ECHAM4.5 AGCM simulations forced by observed SST; the SF component (τSF) is explicitly estimated from the ECHAM4.5 AGCM ensemble and HCM simulations. Different SF representations are specified in the atmosphere: the SF effect can be either absent or present explicitly in the ICM, or implicitly in the HCM where the ECHAM4.5 AGCM is used as a source for SF. Decadal changes in the ocean thermal structure observed in the late 1970s are incorporated into the coupled systems through the Te parameterizations for the two subperiods before (1963–79) and after (1980–96) the climate shift (T63–79e and T80–96e), respectively. The ICM and HCM simulations well reproduce interannual variability associated with El Niño in the tropical Pacific. Model sensitivity experiments are performed using these two types of coupled models with different realizations of SF in the atmosphere and specifications of decadal Te changes in the ocean. It is demonstrated that the properties of ENSO are modulated differently by these two factors. The decadal Te changes in the ocean can be responsible for a systematic shift in the phase propagation of ENSO, while the SF in the atmosphere can contribute to the amplitude and period modulation in a random way. The relevance to the observed decadal ENSO variability in the late 1970s is discussed.


1987 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 780-787
Author(s):  
A. Ghobarah ◽  
T. S. Aziz

A study is made of the seismic behaviour of tuned equipment–structure systems where one or both of the system components experience inelastic deformation. The response is determined using coupled and decoupled models of the system. The effect of various parameters such as mass ratio and yield level on the system response is evaluated.It was found that the mass ratio and yield level of the tuned inelastic system are the key parameters affecting the response of the coupled system. The response of the primary system is found to be insensitive to the variation of the yield level of the secondary system. In addition, the response obtained using uncoupled analysis of the equipment and structure system is generally higher than the response obtained using coupled analysis and may result in grossly overdesigned systems. Key words: dynamic, seismic, response, tuned, coupled, equipment, structure, earthquake, inelastic.


2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (13) ◽  
pp. 2441-2459 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Zavala-Garay ◽  
C. Zhang ◽  
A. M. Moore ◽  
R. Kleeman

Abstract The possibility that the tropical Pacific coupled system linearly amplifies perturbations produced by the Madden–Julian oscillation (MJO) is explored. This requires an estimate of the low-frequency tail of the MJO. Using 23 yr of NCEP–NCAR reanalyses of surface wind and Reynolds SST, we show that the spatial structure that dominates the intraseasonal band (i.e., the MJO) also dominates the low-frequency band once the anomalies directly related to ENSO have been removed. This low-frequency contribution of the intraseasonal variability is not included in most ENSO coupled models used to date. Its effect in a coupled model of intermediate complexity has, therefore, been studied. It is found that this “MJO forcing” (τMJO) can explain a large fraction of the interannual variability in an asymptotically stable version of the model. This interaction is achieved via linear dynamics. That is, it is the cumulative effect of individual events that maintains ENSOs in this model. The largest coupled wind anomalies are initiated after a sequence of several downwelling Kelvin waves of the same sign have been forced by τMJO. The cumulative effect of the forced Kelvin waves is to persist the (small) SST anomalies in the eastern Pacific just enough for the coupled ocean–atmosphere dynamics to amplify the anomalies into a mature ENSO event. Even though τMJO explains just a small fraction of the energy contained in the stress not associated with ENSO, a large fraction of the modeled ENSO variability is excited by this forcing. The characteristics that make τMJO an optimal stochastic forcing for the model are discussed. The large zonal extent is an important factor that differentiates the MJO from other sources of stochastic forcing.


2009 ◽  
Vol 22 (10) ◽  
pp. 2541-2556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malcolm J. Roberts ◽  
A. Clayton ◽  
M.-E. Demory ◽  
J. Donners ◽  
P. L. Vidale ◽  
...  

Abstract Results are presented from a matrix of coupled model integrations, using atmosphere resolutions of 135 and 90 km, and ocean resolutions of 1° and 1/3°, to study the impact of resolution on simulated climate. The mean state of the tropical Pacific is found to be improved in the models with a higher ocean resolution. Such an improved mean state arises from the development of tropical instability waves, which are poorly resolved at low resolution; these waves reduce the equatorial cold tongue bias. The improved ocean state also allows for a better simulation of the atmospheric Walker circulation. Several sensitivity studies have been performed to further understand the processes involved in the different component models. Significantly decreasing the horizontal momentum dissipation in the coupled model with the lower-resolution ocean has benefits for the mean tropical Pacific climate, but decreases model stability. Increasing the momentum dissipation in the coupled model with the higher-resolution ocean degrades the simulation toward that of the lower-resolution ocean. These results suggest that enhanced ocean model resolution can have important benefits for the climatology of both the atmosphere and ocean components of the coupled model, and that some of these benefits may be achievable at lower ocean resolution, if the model formulation allows.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 2635-2657
Author(s):  
Chao Sun ◽  
Li Liu ◽  
Ruizhe Li ◽  
Xinzhu Yu ◽  
Hao Yu ◽  
...  

Abstract. Data assimilation (DA) provides initial states of model runs by combining observational information and models. Ensemble-based DA methods that depend on the ensemble run of a model have been widely used. In response to the development of seamless prediction based on coupled models or even Earth system models, coupled DA is now in the mainstream of DA development. In this paper, we focus on the technical challenges in developing a coupled ensemble DA system, especially how to conveniently achieve efficient interaction between the ensemble of the coupled model and the DA methods. We first propose a new DA framework, DAFCC1 (Data Assimilation Framework based on C-Coupler2.0, version 1), for weakly coupled ensemble DA, which enables users to conveniently integrate a DA method into a model as a procedure that can be directly called by the model ensemble. DAFCC1 automatically and efficiently handles data exchanges between the model ensemble members and the DA method without global communications and does not require users to develop extra code for implementing the data exchange functionality. Based on DAFCC1, we then develop an example weakly coupled ensemble DA system by combining an ensemble DA system and a regional atmosphere–ocean–wave coupled model. This example DA system and our evaluations demonstrate the correctness of DAFCC1 in developing a weakly coupled ensemble DA system and the effectiveness in accelerating an offline DA system that uses disk files as the interfaces for the data exchange functionality.


Author(s):  
Mohamed Gharib ◽  
Mansour Karkoub

Undesired vibrations in structures, buildings, and machines lead to reduction in the life of the system and greatly affects the safety of the occupying or operating personnel. In addition, economic and time losses could result from needed repairs or reconstruction. Many control techniques, active and passive, have been devised over the years to reduce/eliminate the vibrations in the aforementioned systems. Passive vibration control techniques are favorable over the active ones due to their simplicity, ease of implementation, cost, and power consumption. In dynamic structures, such as large buildings, passive control techniques are favored over their active counterparts. The most common types of passive control devices are tuned mass and impact dampers. The advocates of each of these devices boasts advantages of the others; however, there have been no systematic studies to compare and quantify the effectiveness of each of these types of devices as well as their suitability for specific applications. In this paper, a comparative study between the tuned mass dampers and impact dampers is conducted. A one-story structure is used to show the effectiveness of each of these devices in absorbing the vibrations of the structure. The coupled systems are modeled and simulated under free vibrations. The time responses are acquired using the same geometric parameters, excitation, and initial conditions. The comparisons are based on the settling time and amplitude decay rates of the primary system using each damper type. The numerical results show that both dampers can produce similar dampening effects if the parameters are optimized; however, correlating the dampers parameters is a challenging problem in the field of vibration and control.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cassien Diabe Ndiaye ◽  
Juliette Mignot ◽  
Elsa Mohino

<p>The semiarid region of the Sahel was marked during the 20<sup>th</sup> Century by significant modulations of its rainfall regime. Part of these modulations has been associated with the internal variability of the climate system, mediated by changes in oceanic sea surface temperature (SST). We show here that the external forcings, and in particular anthropogenic aerosols, might have played a role more important than previously thought in setting these variations. The study is based on the recent simulations performed for CMIP6 with the IPSL-CM6A-LR coupled model. As in most coupled models, the maximum precipitation is limited to the southern Sahel during boreal summer in the IPSL-CM6A-LR model. A novel definition of the Sahel precipitation region is proposed in order to take this bias into account. Our results show that external forcings induce decadal modulations of Sahel precipitation that correlate significantly at 0.6 with the observed precipitations and that the anthropogenic aerosols explain more than 70% of these modulations. These results confirm recent results of CMIP6 highlighting an important role of aerosol forcing for the decadal climate in and around the North Atlantic ocean.</p>


Author(s):  
Zhe Yang ◽  
Abbas Mohammed

Traditional spectrum licensing enables guaranteed quality of service but could lead to inefficient use of the spectrum. The quest to achieve higher usage efficiency for the spectrum has been the hottest research topic worldwide recently. More efficient transmission technologies are being developed, but they alone cannot solve problems of spatially and temporally underused spectrum and radio resources. In this chapter, the authors review major challenges in traditional spectrum sharing and mechanisms to optimize the efficiency of spectrum usage. They investigate and assess incentives of a primary terrestrial system and secondary system based on a High-Altitude Platform (HAP) to share spectrum towards common benefits. The primary terrestrial system is defined to have exclusive rights to access the spectrum, which is shared by the secondary HAP system upon request. The Markov chain is presented to model two spectrum-sharing scenarios and evaluate the performance of spectrum sharing between primary terrestrial and secondary HAP systems. Simulation results show that to reserve an amount of spectrum from a primary system could encourage spectrum sharing with a secondary system, which has a frequent demand on requesting spectrum resources.


2018 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 741-758 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rakesh K. Goel

This paper presents a simple procedure to estimate seismic forces in ancillary components (secondary systems) supported on marine structures such as piers, wharves, and marine oil terminals (primary systems). Since many such marine structures can be idealized as single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) systems, this study uses a simple linear-elastic model with two DOF, one representing the marine structure and the other representing the ancillary component. This study shows that acceleration at the base of the secondary system is approximately equal to spectral acceleration at the fundamental period of the primary system. It also proposes a formula, which is an improvement over current ASCE 7-10 recommendations, to estimate acceleration amplification in the secondary system due to its flexibility when mass and period ratios of the secondary and primary systems are known. The procedure in this paper is strictly applicable to marine structures for which primarily a single mode contributes to seismic response.


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