scholarly journals Parametric Study of a Taut Compliant Mooring System for a FOWT Compared to a Catenary Mooring

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 431 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magnus Thorsen Bach-Gansmo ◽  
Stian Kielland Garvik ◽  
Jonas Bjerg Thomsen ◽  
Morten Thøtt Andersen

The catenary mooring system is a well recognized station keeping method. However, there could be economical and environmental benefits of reducing the footprint. In the last decades, more focus has been given to synthetic mooring lines and different mooring layouts to optimize the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) for offshore renevable energy converters such as wave energy converters. Therefore, this work presents a parametric study of two important parameters, namely the mooring line angle and line pretension, for a taut mooring configuration focusing on the dynamic response when applied to the TetraSpar floating foundation compared to a catenary mooring system. The work is based on experimental results conducted in the wave basin at Aalborg University (AAU) and compared to analytical stiffness calculations. In addition, a numerical model was tuned based on the main dynamics to achieve the tension response. The results showed satisfying dynamic behavior where the angle and pretension mainly influenced the surge and yaw natural periods. The motion response showed similar behavior between the chosen parameters, and larger pitch amplitudes were found compared to the catenary system.

Author(s):  
Gang Zou ◽  
Lei Wang ◽  
Feng Zhang

As the offshore industry is developing into deeper and deeper water, station keeping technics are becoming more and more important to the industry. Based on the dynamic positioning system, the thruster assisted mooring system (TAMS) is developed, which consisted of mooring lines and thrusters. The main function of the TAMS is to hold a structure against wind wave and current loads with its thruster and cables, which is mainly evaluated by the holding capacity of the system. The arrangement of the mooring lines (location of anchor or the mooring line angle relative to platform) will directly affect the TAMS holding capacity because of the influence of the directions of the mooring forces. So finding out an optimum arrangement of the mooring lines is essential since the performance of the TAMS depends greatly on the arrangement of the mooring lines. The TAMS of a semi-submersible platform, which is studied in this paper, consisted of eight mooring lines. By fixing the layout of the thrusters and changing the location of each mooring line for every case, the performances of the TAMS are analyzed. The platform motions, mooring line tensions and power consumptions are compared to obtain the optimum arrangement of mooring lines, and thus a thruster assisted mooring system with a better performance can be achieved. Time domain simulation is carried out in this paper to obtain the results.


Author(s):  
Yihua Su ◽  
Jianmin Yang ◽  
Longfei Xiao ◽  
Gang Chen

Modeling the deepwater mooring system in present available basin using standard Froude scaling at an acceptable scale presents new challenges. A prospective method is to truncate the full-depth mooring lines and find an equivalent truncated mooring system that can reproduce both static and dynamic response of the full-depth mooring system, but large truncation arise if the water depth where the deepwater platform located is very deep or the available water depth of the basin is shallow. A Cell-Truss Spar operated in 1500m water depth is calibrated in a wave basin with 4m water depth. Large truncation arises even though a small model scale 1:100 is chosen. A series of truncated mooring lines are designed and investigated through numerical simulations, single line model tests and coupled wave basin model tests. It is found that dynamic response of the truncated mooring line can be enlarged by using larger diameter and mass per unit length in air. Although the truncated mooring line with clump presents a “taut” shape, its dynamic characteristics is dominated by the geometry stiffness and it underestimates dynamic response of the full-depth mooring line, even induces high-frequency dynamic response. There are still two obstacles in realizing dynamic similarity for the largely truncated mooring system: lower mean value of the top tension of upstream mooring lines, and smaller low-frequency mooring-induced damping.


Author(s):  
Alejandro J. C. Crespo ◽  
Matthew Hall ◽  
José M. Domínguez ◽  
Corrado Altomare ◽  
Minghao Wu ◽  
...  

The meshless method called Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) is here proposed to simulate floating Oscillating Water Column (OWC) Wave Energy Converters (WECs). The SPH-based DualSPHysics code is coupled with MoorDyn, an open-source dynamic mooring line model. The coupled model is first validated using laboratory tests of a floating solid box moored to the wave flume bottom using four mooring lines interacting with regular waves. The numerical free-surface elevation at different locations, the motions of the floating solid box (heave, surge and pitch) and the tensions in the mooring lines are compared with the experimental data. Secondly, the coupled model is employed to simulate a floating OWC WEC moored to the sea bottom, while numerical results are also validated using data from physical modelling. The numerical results are promising to simulate floating OWC WECs. However, some discrepancies are noticed since the simulations presented in this work only consider a single-phase (water) so the full OWC WEC behaviour is only partially reproduced. Nevertheless, considering the aforementioned limitations, DualSPHysics can be used at this stage as complementary tool to physical modelling for a preliminary design of floating wave energy converters.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno Paduano ◽  
Giuseppe Giorgi ◽  
Rui P. F. Gomes ◽  
Edoardo Pasta ◽  
João C. C. Henriques ◽  
...  

The mooring system of floating wave energy converters (WECs) has a crucial impact on power generation efficiency, cost of delivered energy, proper operation, reliability and survivability. An effective design, addressing such competing objectives, requires appropriate mathematical models to predict mooring loads and dynamic response. However, conversely to traditional offshore engineering applications, experience in modelling mooring systems for WECs is limited, due to their unique requirement of maximising the motion while minimising loads and costs. Even though modelling approaches and software are available for this application, guidelines and critical comparison are still scarce. This paper proposes a discussion and validation of three mooring-line models: one quasi-static approach (developed in-house) and two dynamic lumped-mass approaches (the open source MoorDyn and the commercial OrcaFlex). The case study is a 1:32-scale prototype of a floating oscillating water column WEC tested in a wave tank, with three mooring lines, each one comprising of a riser and a clump weight. Validation, performed by imposing fairlead displacements and comparing resulting tensions, shows good agreement. The small scale may induce numerical instabilities and uncertainties in the parameter estimation. Finally, likely due to internal resonance of this particular mooring system, high-frequency content in the mooring tension is found, albeit absent in the kinematics of the floater.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Dongsheng Qiao ◽  
Binbin Li ◽  
Jun Yan ◽  
Yu Qin ◽  
Haizhi Liang ◽  
...  

During the long-term service condition, the mooring line of the deep-water floating platform may fail due to various reasons, such as overloading caused by an accidental condition or performance deterioration. Therefore, the safety performance under the transient responses process should be evaluated in advance, during the design phase. A series of time-domain numerical simulations for evaluating the performance changes of a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) with different broken modes of mooring lines was carried out. The broken conditions include the single mooring line or two mooring lines failure under ipsilateral, opposite, and adjacent sides. The resulting transient and following steady-state responses of the vessel and the mooring line tensions were analyzed, and the corresponding influence mechanism was investigated. The accidental failure of a single or two mooring lines changes the watch circle of the vessel and the tension redistribution of the remaining mooring lines. The results indicated that the failure of mooring lines mainly influences the responses of sway, surge, and yaw, and the change rule is closely related to the stiffness and symmetry of the mooring system. The simulation results could give a profound understanding of the transient-effects influence process of mooring line failure, and the suggestions are given to account for the transient effects in the design of the mooring system.


Author(s):  
Daniele Dessi ◽  
Sara Siniscalchi Minna

A combined numerical/theoretical investigation of a moored floating structure response to incoming waves is presented. The floating structure consists of three bodies, equipped with fenders, joined by elastic cables. The system is also moored to the seabed with eight mooring lines. This corresponds to an actual configuration of a floating structure used as a multipurpose platform for hosting wind-turbines, aquaculture farms or wave-energy converters. The dynamic wave response is investigated with numerical simulations in regular and irregular waves, showing a good agreement with experiments in terms of time histories of pitch, heave and surge motions as well as of the mooring line forces. To highlight the dynamical behavior of this complex configuration, the proper orthogonal decomposition is used for extracting the principal modes by which the moored structure oscillates in waves giving further insights about the way waves excites the structure.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willemijn Pauw ◽  
Remco Hageman ◽  
Joris van den Berg ◽  
Pieter Aalberts ◽  
Hironori Yamaji ◽  
...  

Abstract Integrity of mooring system is of high importance in the offshore industry. In-service assessment of loads in the mooring lines is however very challenging. Direct monitoring of mooring line loads through load cells or inclinometers requires subsea installation work and continuous data transmission. Other solutions based on GPS and motion monitoring have been presented as solutions to overcome these limitations [1]. Monitoring solutions based on GPS and motion data provide good practical benefits, because monitoring can be conducted from accessible area. The procedure relies on accurate numerical models to model the relation between global motions and response of the mooring system. In this paper, validation of this monitoring approach for a single unit will be presented. The unit under consideration is a turret-moored unit operating in Australia. In-service measurements of motions, GPS and line tensions are available. A numerical time-domain model of the mooring system was created. This model was used to simulate mooring line tensions due to measured FPSO motions. Using the measured unit response avoids the uncertainty resulting from a prediction of the hydrodynamic response. Measurements from load cells in various mooring lines are available. These measurements were compared against the results obtained from the simulations for validation of the approach. Three different periods, comprising a total of five weeks of data, were examined in more detail. Two periods are mild weather conditions with different dominant wave directions. The third period features heavy weather conditions. In this paper, the data set and numerical model are presented. A comparison between the measured and numerically calculated mooring line forces will be presented. Differences between the calculated and measured forces are examined. This validation study has shown that in-service monitoring of mooring line loads through GPS and motion data provides a new opportunity for mooring integrity assessment with reduced monitoring system complexity.


Author(s):  
Pedro C. Vicente ◽  
Anto´nio F. O. Falca˜o ◽  
Paulo A. P. Justino

Floating point absorbers devices are a large class of wave energy converters for deployment offshore, typically in water depths between 40 and 100m. As floating oil and gas platforms, the devices are subject to drift forces due to waves, currents and wind, and therefore have to be kept in place by a proper mooring system. Although similarities can be found between the energy converting systems and floating platforms, the mooring design requirements will have some important differences between them, one of them associated to the fact that, in the case of a wave energy converter, the mooring connections may significantly modify its energy absorption properties by interacting with its oscillations. It is therefore important to examine what might be the more suitable mooring design for wave energy devices, according to the converters specifications. When defining a mooring system for a device, several initial parameters have to be established, such as cable material and thickness, distance to the mooring point on the bottom, and which can influence the device performance in terms of motion, power output and survivability. Different parameters, for which acceptable intervals can be established, will represent different power absorptions, displacements from equilibrium position, load demands on the moorings and of course also different costs. The work presented here analyzes what might be, for wave energy converter floating point absorber, the optimal mooring configuration parameters, respecting certain pre-established acceptable intervals and using a time-domain model that takes into account the non-linearities introduced by the mooring system. Numerical results for the mooring forces demands and also motions and absorbed power, are presented for two different mooring configurations for a system consisting of a hemispherical buoy in regular waves and assuming a liner PTO.


Author(s):  
Adinarayana Mukkamala ◽  
Partha Chakrabarti ◽  
Subrata K. Chakrabarti

The new parallel Tacoma Narrows Bridge being constructed by Tacoma Narrows Constructors will be mounted on two towers and these towers in turn will be supported by reinforced concrete caissons referred to as East Caisson (Tacoma side) and West Caisson (Gig Harbor side). Each Caisson is towed to the location and several stages of construction will take place at the actual site. During construction, the floating caissons will be moored in place to hold it against the flood and ebb currents in the Narrows. During the mooring system design, a desired pretension is established for the lines at each draft. However, due to practical limitations in the field some variations to this design pretension value may be expected. It is important to study the effect of this variation on the overall performance of the mooring system. In this paper, the sensitivity of the mooring line pretension on the overall performance of the mooring system for the above caisson is presented. During this study, all the variables that affect the mooring system design such as mooring system layout, mooring line makeup, anchor positions, fairlead departure angles, and fairlead locations are kept constant. The only variable changed is the pretension of the mooring lines. Two approaches for defining the variations in the pretension have been studied in this paper. In the first approach, the pretension is changed in a systematic way (predicted approach). In the second method the pretension is changed randomly. The latter is considered more likely to occur in the field for this type of complex mooring system. Both sets of results are presented for some selected drafts attained by the caisson during its construction. The difference in the results from the two methods is discussed.


Author(s):  
Joshua Baker ◽  
Solomon C. Yim ◽  
Ean Amon ◽  
Sean Moran ◽  
Terry Lettenmaier ◽  
...  

This study presents a mooring analysis of the Ocean Sentinel buoy, which is a mobile test platform for Wave Energy Converters (WECs). The Ocean Sentinel is owned and operated by the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center (NNMREC) at Oregon State University (OSU). The study involved a field observation as well as numerical modeling. The Ocean Sentinel was deployed from 7/29/2013 – 10/04/2013 at the NNMREC North Energy Test Site, which is located between 2–3 nautical miles (3.7–5.6 km) offshore of Yaquina Head, north of Newport, OR. It was configured in a three-point mooring with load cells on each mooring line. Prior to deployment, the numerical model was used for design and testing of the Ocean Sentinel mooring system. After deployment, recorded environmental conditions were coupled with the model to simulate deployed conditions, and model predictions of tension in the mooring lines were compared with actual results.


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