scholarly journals Design and Analysis of a Mooring Buoy for a Floating Arrayed WEC Platform

Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 1390
Author(s):  
Sung Youn Boo ◽  
Steffen Allan Shelley

This paper presents the design and analysis of a mooring buoy and its mooring systems to moor a floating platform mounting an arrayed Wave Energy Converters (WECs). The mooring buoy allows the WEC platform to weathervane around the mooring buoy freely by the prevailing environment directions, which enables consistent power generation. The WEC platform is connected to the buoy with synthetic hawsers, while station-keeping of the buoy is maintained with catenary mooring lines of chains tied to the buoy keel. The buoy also accommodates a power cable to transfer the electricity from the WEC platform to the shore. The WEC platform is designed to produce a total of 1.0 MW with multiple WECs installed in an array. Fully coupled time-domain analyses are conducted under the site sea states, including extreme 50 y and survival 100 y conditions. The buoy motions, mooring tensions and other design parameters are evaluated. Strength and fatigue designs of the mooring systems are validated with requirements according to industry standards. Global and local structural designs of the mooring buoy are carried out and confirm the design compliances.

Author(s):  
Ying Min Low ◽  
Robin S. Langley

The global dynamic response of a deep water floating production system needs to be predicted with coupled analysis methods to ensure accuracy and reliability. Two types of coupling can be identified: one is between the floating platform and the mooring lines/risers, while the other is between the mean offset, the wave frequency, and the low frequency motions of the system. At present, it is unfeasible to employ fully coupled time domain analysis on a routine basis due to the prohibitive computational time. This has spurred the development of more efficient methods, including frequency domain approaches. A good understanding of the intricate coupling mechanisms is paramount for making appropriate approximations in an efficient method. To this end, a simplified two degree-of-freedom system representing the surge motion of a vessel and the fundamental vibration mode of the lines is studied for physical insight. Within this framework, the frequency domain equations are rigorously formulated, and the nonlinearities in the restoring forces and drag are statistically linearized. The model allows key coupling effects to be understood; among other things, the equations demonstrate how the wave frequency dynamics of the mooring lines are coupled to the low frequency motions of the vessel. Subsequently, the effects of making certain simplifications are investigated through a series of frequency domain analyses, and comparisons are made to simulations in the time domain. The work highlights the effect of some common approximations, and recommendations are made regarding the development of efficient modeling techniques.


Author(s):  
Ying Min Low ◽  
Robin S. Langley

The recognition of the need for a fully coupled analysis of deepwater floating production systems has led to the research and development of several coupled analysis tools in recent years. Barring a handful of exceptions, these tools and available commercial packages are invariably in the time domain. This has resulted in a much better understanding and confidence in time domain coupled analysis, but less so for the frequency domain approach. In this paper, the viability of frequency domain coupled analysis is explored by performing a systematic comparison of time and frequency domain methods using computer programs developed in-house. In both methods, a global coordinate system is employed where the vessel is modeled with six degrees-of-freedom, while the mooring lines and risers are discretized as lumped masses connected by extensional and rotational springs. Coupling between the vessel and the mooring lines is achieved by stiff springs, and the influence of inertia and damping from the lines are directly accounted for without the need for prior assumptions. First and second order wave forces generated from a random environment are applied on the vessel, as well as drag and inertia loading on the lines. For the time domain simulation, the Wilson-theta implicit integration scheme is employed to permit the use of relatively large time steps. The frequency domain analysis is highly efficient despite being formulated in global coordinates, owing to the banded characteristics of the mass, damping and stiffness matrices. The nonlinear drag forces are stochastically linearized iteratively. As both the time and frequency domain models of the coupled system are identical, a consistent assessment of the error induced by stochastic linearization can be made.


Author(s):  
Ying Min Low ◽  
Robin S. Langley

As the exploitation of hydrocarbon moves towards deeper waters, the global dynamic response of a floating production system needs to be predicted with coupled analysis methods to ensure accuracy and reliability. Two types of coupling can be identified: one is between the floating platform and the mooring lines/risers, while the other is between the mean offset, the wave frequency and the low frequency motions of the system. At present, it is unfeasible to employ fully coupled time domain analysis on a routine basis due to prohibitive computational time. This has spurred the development of more efficient methods that account for the various couplings, including frequency domain approaches. It is paramount for the complex coupling mechanisms to be well understood before appropriate simplifications and assumptions can be made. In this paper, a simplified two degree-of-freedom system representing the surge motion of a vessel and the fundamental vibration mode of the lines is examined which captures the important underlying physics. Within this framework, the frequency domain equations are rigorously formulated, and the nonlinearities in the restoring forces and drag are stochastically linearized. The model allows key coupling effects to be identified: among other things, the equations demonstrate how the wave frequency dynamics of the mooring lines are coupled to the low frequency motions of the vessel. Subsequently, the effects of making certain simplifications are investigated through a series of frequency domain spectral analyses, and comparisons are made to simulations in the time domain. The work highlights the effect of certain common approximations, and recommendations are made regarding the development of efficient modeling techniques.


Author(s):  
Chen Gang ◽  
Zhao Nan ◽  
Zhang Wei ◽  
Yuan Hongtao ◽  
Li Chunhui ◽  
...  

The analysis of the influence of risers on the motions of a floating platform is often conducted and simplified by uncoupled method. As the number of risers and water depth increase, this method would not predict system motion accurately. Coupled analysis method in time domain becomes a very convenient approach in response calculation since it automatically includes the interaction among platform, mooring lines and risers. This paper introduces a full coupled approach by AQWA-NAUT to include viscous damping of the semi submersible and effects of steel catenary risers on the wave frequency response of platform in time domain motion analysis. The main conclusion of this paper is that full coupled method can accruately predict semi submersible Response Amplitude Operator (RAOs) comparing to the case without risers. Other conclusions are that risers have an important effect on the wave frequency motion of semi submersible and also lead to a phase lag with respect to platform motions.


Author(s):  
Giovanni Rinaldi ◽  
Philipp Thies ◽  
Lars Johanning ◽  
Paul McEvoy ◽  
Georgios Georgallis ◽  
...  

Abstract Future offshore wind technology solutions will be floating to facilitate deep water locations. The EUH2020 funded project FLOTANT (Innovative, low cost, low weight and safe floating wind technology optimized for deep water wind sites) aims to address the arising technical and economic challenges linked to this progress. In particular, innovative solutions in terms of mooring lines, power cable and floating platform, specifically designed for floating offshore wind devices, will be developed and tested, and the benefits provided by these components assessed. In this paper a purpose-built Failure Modes and Effect Analysis (FMEA) technique is presented, and applied to the novel floating offshore wind components. The aim is to determine the technology qualification, identify the key failure modes and assess the criticality of these components and their relative contributions to the reliability, availability and maintainability of the device. This will allow for the identification of suitable mitigation measures in the development lifecycle, as well as an assessment of potential cost savings and impacts of the specific innovations. The methodology takes into account inputs from the components developers and other project partners, as well as information extracted from existing literature and databases. Findings in terms of components innovations, their main criticalities and related mitigation measures, and impacts on preventive and corrective maintenance, will be presented in order to inform current and future developments for floating offshore wind devices.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 781
Author(s):  
Shi He ◽  
Aijun Wang

The numerical procedures for dynamic analysis of mooring lines in the time domain and frequency domain were developed in this work. The lumped mass method was used to model the mooring lines. In the time domain dynamic analysis, the modified Euler method was used to solve the motion equation of mooring lines. The dynamic analyses of mooring lines under horizontal, vertical, and combined harmonic excitations were carried out. The cases of single-component and multicomponent mooring lines under these excitations were studied, respectively. The case considering the seabed contact was also included. The program was validated by comparing with the results from commercial software, Orcaflex. For the frequency domain dynamic analysis, an improved frame invariant stochastic linearization method was applied to the nonlinear hydrodynamic drag term. The cases of single-component and multicomponent mooring lines were studied. The comparison of results shows that frequency domain results agree well with nonlinear time domain results.


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 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 581
Author(s):  
Hongrae Park ◽  
Sungjun Jung

A cost-effective mooring system design has been emphasized for traditional offshore industry applications and in the design of floating offshore wind turbines. The industry consensus regarding mooring system design is mainly inhibited by previous project experience. The design of the mooring system also requires a significant number of design cycles. To take aim at these challenges, this paper studies the application of an optimization algorithm to the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) mooring system design with an internal turret system at deep-water locations. The goal is to minimize mooring system costs by satisfying constraints, and an objective function is defined as the minimum weight of the mooring system. Anchor loads, a floating body offset and mooring line tensions are defined as constraints. In the process of optimization, the mooring system is analyzed in terms of the frequency domain and time domain, and global and local optimization algorithms are also deployed towards reaching the optimum solution. Three cases are studied with the same initial conditions. The global and local optimization algorithms successfully find a feasible mooring system by reducing the mooring system cost by up to 52%.


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