Proceedings of OMAE06 25st International Conference on Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering June 4-9, 2006 Hamburg, Germany

OMAE2006-92155
A GENERALIZED CONTACT MODEL FOR NONLINEAR DYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF FLOATING OFFSHORE SYSTEMS
Danilo Machado Lawinscky da Silva Fabrcio Nogueira Corra Breno Pinheiro Jacob LAMCSO Laboratory of Computer Methods and Offshore Systems PEC/COPPE/UFRJ Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil ABSTRACT The objective of this work is to present the implementation of a contact model that represents, during a nonlinear dynamic analysis of floating offshore systems, the contact of lines with the platform, as well as the contact involving different lines and, eventually, involving two different platforms in the same model. Traditional contact models consider for instance a generalized scalar element, consisting of two nodes linked by a non-linear gap spring. In this work, the contact model is geometrically defined by volumes that cannot interpenetrate. A penetration stiffness can be defined for each volume; lateral friction can also be considered by this model. An appropriate data structure is used to define the volumes and guarantee the efficiency of the algorithm by an optimized search. The application of the presented contact model is demonstrated by case studies of actual applications for offshore systems: pipelines in S-Lay installation operations, where the contact is complex, specified only in some points of the ramp and stinger; offloading floating hoses that may collide with the hull of the ship, and catlines in lift operations. INTRODUCTION Deepwater offshore oil exploitation activities have been requiring the use of sophisticated computational tools to predict the behavior of floating offshore systems under the action of environmental loads. It has already been recognized that the traditional uncoupled analysis methodology, where mooring lines and risers are represented by simplified scalar models, lead to simplifications that may severely affect the results, mainly for new concepts that are recently being considered for deep water applications in Campos Basin. Therefore, the computational tools should be able to perform coupled dynamic analyses, considering the non-linear interaction of the hydrodynamic behavior of the platform with the structural/hydrodynamic behavior of the mooring lines and risers, represented by Finite Element models. Several studies have been performed regarding the use of coupled analysis tools for the design of deep and ultra-deep water systems, including also hybrid methodologies that combine coupled and uncoupled models [1]. The implementation of such analysis tools considers the coupling of the equations of motion of the FEM model of the lines with the 6-DOF equations of motion of the platform hull, but may not rigorously consider the contact between the lines and the hull and other volumes of the platform Therefore, the objective of this work is to present a tool that improve the coupled analysis model described above and make it more realistic. Such tool represents, during the dynamic analysis, the contact of lines and the platform, as well as the contact involving different lines and, eventually, involving two different platforms in the same model. The use of a sophisticated computational tool becomes mandatory not only for the design of production platforms, but also for the simulation of several offshore installation operations. For instance, in the installation of submarine pipelines, the wall thickness design may not be governed by the pressure containment requirements of the pipeline during the operation, but by the installation process, specifically the combined action of bending, tension and hydrostatic pressure acting on the pipeline, that is also submitted to the motions of the laybarge. Therefore, to predict the behavior of such offshore operations it is very important to use a computational tool that not only considers the coupling of the pipeline with the motions of the barge, but also that rigorously consider the contact between the pipeline and its supports (laybarge, stinger, seabed). Traditional contact models consider for instance a generalized scalar element, consisting of two nodes linked by a non-linear gap spring. In this work, the contact model is geometrically defined by volumes that cannot interpenetrate. A penetration stiffness can be defined for each volume; lateral friction can also be considered by this model. The first stage in a contact algorithm consists in checking if the boundary surface was crossed. A contact algorithm works

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by monitoring the position of nodes along a section of the line (mooring lines, risers or pipelines) and comparing these to the instantaneous location of contact surfaces at each solution iteration. Some aspects of computational geometry are used, as well as an appropriate data structure is used to define the volumes (bounded by the contact surfaces) and guarantee the efficiency of the algorithm by an optimized search. FUNDAMENTALS OF COMPUTATIONAL GEOMETRY Broadly speaking, computational geometry is the study of algorithms for solving geometric problems on a computer. Much of computational geometry performs its computations on geometrical objects known as polygons. A polygon is a region of a plane bounded by a finite collection of lines segments forming a simple closed curve. Polygons are a convenient representation for many real-world objects; convenient both in that an abstract polygon is often an accurate model of real objects and in that it is easily manipulated computationally. A polyhedra is the natural generalization of a twodimensional polygon to three dimensions: it is a region of space whose boundary is composed of a finite number of flat polygonal faces, any pair of which are either disjoint or meet at edges and vertices [ref]. The boundary or surface of a polyhedron is composed of three types of geometric objects: zero-dimensional vertices (points), one-dimensional edges (segments), and twodimensional faces (polygons). It is a useful simplification to demand that the faces be convex polygons, which was defined to be bounded. This is no loss of generality since any nonconvex face can be partitioned into convex ones. Convex polyhedra are called polytopes, sometimes 3polytopes to emphasize their three-dimensionality (the notation in the literature is unfortunately not standardized. Here, a polytope is defined to be convex and bounded, and a polyhedron to be bounded). A polytope is a polyhedron that is convex in that the segment connecting any two of its points is inside. Just as convex polygons can be characterized by the local requirement that each vertex be convex, polytopes can be specified locally by requiring that all dihedral angles be convex (p). Dihedral angles are the internal angles in space at an edge between the planes containing its two incident faces. For any polytope, the sum of the faces angles around each vertex are at most 2p, but this condition does not alone imply convexity.
Point in polyhedron

Determining whether a point is inside a polyhedron has many applications, amongst them, collision detection: determining if a moving point has penetrated an object. There are two types of polyhedron, the convex ones (polytopes) and the nonconvex ones. Here, it is considered that the polyhedron, convex or not, is composed by a set of triangular faces. This condition is justified later, and does not imply loss of generality

once the surface of any solid object can be represented by a set of triangular faces of appropriated sides. The nonconvex case admits two solutions based on: solid angles and ray-crossing: Solid angles It depends on a notion of signed solid angle, a measure of the fraction of a sphere surface consumed by a cone apexed at a point. It is measured in steradians, which assigns 4p to the full-sphere angle. The solid angle to a tetrahedron with apex q and base T is the surface area of a unit sphere S falling within the tetrahedron when q is placed at the center of S, and the faces incident to q are extended (if necessary) to cut through S. The sign of the angle depends on the orientation of T. if the solid angles formed by q and every face of a polyhedron P are summed, the result is 4p if q P and zero of q P. This provides an elegant algorithm for point in polyhedron, which, suffers the same pragmatic flaws as its two-dimensional counterpart: it is subject to numerical errors, and it is slow. A timing comparison between the ray-crossing code to be presented below and an implementation of the solid angle approach showed the latter to be twenty-five times slower [2]. Their code is, however, much shorter. Ray-crossings The logic behind the ray-crossing algorithm in three dimensions is: q is inside if a ray from q to infinity crosses the boundary of P an odd number of times. A ray to infinity can be effectively simulated by a long segment qr, long enough so that r is definitely outside P. The problematic aspect of this approach is to develop a scheme to count crossings accurately in the presence of the wide variety of possible degeneracies that could occur: qr could lie in a face of P, could hit a vertex, could collinearly overlap with an edge, hit an edge transversely, etc. To the convex case, the problem is easier and the solution is based on the sign of the volume of a tetrahedron formed by the point and a triangle in the solid surface. Volume sign The tetrahedron volume sign test consists of to calculate the volume of the tetrahedron built by the union of a triangle, which belongs to the boundary surface, and the point to be checked. For convention the normal to the contact surface is taken pointing to outside of the volume, as shown in Figure 1. Positive and negative volumes define the two states of the Boolean test while zero indicates that the four vertices are coplanar.

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Figure 1 Tetrahedron volume sign. In the coplanar case the point is on the contact surface. It should be noted that the volume equal zero in this case do not means that the value of the tetrahedron volume is numerically zero, it only means that this value is equal to the minimal tetrahedron volume that maintains the point outside. In other words, the distance between the point and the triangle-plane on the surface contact is equal to the radius of the line at this point. Positives values of the tetrahedron volume indicated that the point is outside the volume and, obviously, the contact surface was not crossed. In this case, the test stops. The point is inside the volume if the tetrahedron volumes were negative for all triangles on the surface contact. Of course to check all triangles on the contact surface against every point to be checked is not of interest. Then an appropriated data structure needs to be used to define the volumes and guarantee the efficiency of the algorithm by an optimized search. In addition it is included in this algorithm a very simple bounding-box test. This test consist of put the volume inside a box and before start the volume sign test, it is verified if the point is inside the box. The bounding-box test has a very low cost and eliminates a lot of unnecessary computations. An alternative when the volume is nonconvex consists of divide this volume in a set of convex ones and enables the volume sign test to be used. Numerical experiments have shown that this procedure is very attractive for many nonconvex volumes.
Segment-segment Intersection

Let A = b a and C = d c; these vectors point along the segments. Any point on the line Lab can be represented as the vector sum p(s) = a + sA, which takes to a point a on Lab, and then moves some distance along the line by scaling A by s (see Figure 2). The variable s is called the parameter of this equation.

Figure 2 Considering the values obtained for s = 0, s = 1, and s = : p(0) = a, p(1) = a + A = a + b a = b and p() = (a + b)/2. These examples demonstrate that p(s) for s [0,1] represents all the points on the segment ab, with the value of s representing the fraction of the distance between the endpoints; in particular, the extremes of s yield the endpoints. The points on the second segment can be similarly represented by q(t) = c + tC, t [0,1]. Using equations of vetorial calculus to calculate the distance between two lines (as shown in Figure 3): r1 r2 (2) dist(r1,r2) = (A C)|r r | 1 2 where the vectors r1 and r2 have the same direction of the lines r1 and r2, respectively.

A brute-force intersection algorithm takes a long time: checking each segment against every other. To improve efficiency, it is wished to compute intersections between only those pairs of segments that actually intersect, or those pairs of segments that have real chances of intersect. This goal sounds circular, but the distance between the midpoints of the segments gives, for example, a sufficient condition to exclude the intersection. Here, intersection means that one segment is sufficient close to other one in such a way that they can collide. This collision occurs considering that the segment has a diameter like a cylinder. If L1, L2 and d1, d2 are the lengths and the diameters of the segments, the intersection does not occur if 1 1 Dmidpoint > 2 (L1+ L2) + 2 ( d1 + d2) (1) When the intersection occurs, the coordinates of this point are needed. Fortunately, it is not too difficult to compute the intersection point. Let the two segments have endpoints a and b and c and d, and let Lab and Lcd be the lines containing the two segments. A parametric representation of the two segments will be used, as the meaning of the variables seems more intuitive.

Figure 3 Distance between two lines. If dist(r1,r2) (d1 + d2) then the point of intersection between the lines and the normal that represents the smallest distance is calculated using the property that the vector v1 = (P1 A) and the vector r1 are parallel in the same way that v2 = (P2 C) and r2 are parallel too. Using the parallel condition, (3) v1 = (P1 A) = k1r1 and v2 = (P2 C) = k2r2 Where k1 and k2 are unknowns parameters. Subtracting the second equation from the first one the follow relation can be written: (5) (P1 P2) = (A C) + k1r1 k2r2 (4)

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The parameters k1 and k2 are calculated solving a system of two equations: the first one is obtained taken the dot product between the equation (5) and r1; and the second one is obtained taken the dot product between the equation (5) and r2. With the values of k1 and k2, the points P1 and P2 are easily defined by substituting k1 and k2 in the equations (3) and (4) respectively. Once defined P1 and P2, it is easy verify if that points satisfy the conditions s [0,1] and t [0,1] in the equations p(s) = a + sA and q(t) = c + tC. There are four possible combinations that results in three cases: (1) s and t [0,1]; in this case dist(r1,r2) is the smallest distance between the segments. (2) s [0,1] and t [0,1] or s [0,1] and t [0,1]; in this case the smallest distance is located between the point inside the segment and one of the extremes of the other segment. (3) s and t [0,1]; in this case the smallest distance is located between two extremes of the segments. Here, the same concepts of bounding-box tests are applied. In addition, when the lines are too close one of other, they displacements need to be monitored because, once that the contact have occurred, the lines responses are applied in the direction of its displacements. CONTACT MODEL FORMULATION Traditional contact models consider for instance a generalized scalar element, consisting of two nodes linked by a non-linear gap spring. Here, the contact model is geometrically defined by volumes that cannot interpenetrate. A penetration stiffness is defined for each volume, lateral friction can also be considered. Geometrically, the volumes consist of a region bounded by a surface that can not be crossed. Therefore, the contact algorithm works by monitoring the position of nodes along a section of the line (mooring lines, risers or pipelines) and comparing these to the instantaneous location of contact surfaces at each solution iteration. In a rigid contact model, once determined that the node has crossed a contact surface, its position is rest back to the contact surface and a boundary condition is applied to the node in the direction normal to the contact surface to restrain the node at that location. The reaction needs to be monitored at each subsequent solution iteration and, when its value becomes negative, that is, the node is attempting to move away from the contact surface, the boundary condition is released and the node is permitted to move away from the contact surface. There are many problems associated to the use of rigid contact model [3]. The major difficulty associated with this approach is the use of boundary conditions to constrain the motion of the nodes. When a node impacts a contact surface with a significant initial velocity, the boundary condition that is

applied effectively imparts an instantaneous impulse (change in momentum) to the node. Such an input contains frequency components at all frequencies and so has the potential to excite every response frequency in the structure. It follows that, in order to capture the contact accurately, it is necessary to be able to model the full frequency content of the structure response. As this may contain very high frequency components, this requires an extremely small timestep, leading to long simulation runtimes. It should be noted that, with a sufficiently small timestep, the impact is modeling accurately. This however, may require a simulation timestep that is impracticably small.
Line-Hull and Line-Line interaction

The contact model proposed here, called elastic contact model, consists of a generalized elastic surface contact algorithm. The contact is modeled by augmentation of the global stiffness matrix, based on the orientation and contact stiffness of the contact surfaces, in case of line/hull contact, and based on the displacement direction and the internal efforts, in case of line/line contact. That elastic surface algorithm provides a robust tool for modeling line/hull, line/line interaction, and offers significant benefits of run-time performance and solution robustness over a rigid approach and over others elastic models, due an efficient and robust search for collision situations. Here, no contact reactions are monitored, whenever a node leaves a contact surface, the surface stiffness contribution is removed. The algorithm has been shown capable of capturing the detailed characteristics of the bodies (mooring lines, risers, hulls) interaction, in a sophisticated and realistic model, including relative axial and transverse motion with anisotropic friction effects. Contact surface The contact is not restricted to being at a single point on the line, it is considered to occur over the area of the contact surface. With this, each surface region can contact, or support, multiple points of the line. This represents the most realistic approach to modeling line/hull interaction. For any node on the surface contact, the appropriated stiffness terms corresponding to each of the contact are incorporated in the global stiffness matrix at the relevant location. The orientation of the stiffness is determined by the instantaneous orientation of the contact surface. Also, the friction stiffness/load is distributed between all of the nodes on contact with a contact surface. Friction effects The friction effects are accounted for, and these are included by means of a non-linear spring. Figure 4 shows a typical force-deflection relationship. This approach to modeling friction is similar in many aspects to the actual contact modeling itself, in that friction

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force are generated by the spring, rather than by the application of boundary conditions.

Figure 4
Line-Soil interaction

The seabottom is modeled by a surface mesh in which the z-coordinate represents the depth. Soil-pipe interaction effects are modeled through nonlinear scalar elements associated to each node that comprises the spatial discretization of the pipeline. Such scalars act on the seabottom, representing the friction between pipe and soil, and also as contact springs on the vertical direction. Friction effects on the seabottom are represented by an elastoplastic formulation that allows the consideration of anisotropic friction, through the definition of distinct soilresistance coefficients for the axial and lateral directions of the pipeline. The elastoplastic behavior considered in this formulation is illustrated in Figure 5, that shows a typical nonlinear force-displacement function associated to a horizontal d.o.f. of each scalar element. Abscissas of this function correspond to displacements, and ordinates represent the soil resistance. The parameter d indicates the sliding displacement, or the value of displacement for which the soil resistance reaches its maximum value. This maximum value is determined by multiplying the soilresistance coefficient by N, the equivalent nodal load corresponding to the pipeline weight acting on each scalar. The arrows in Figure 5 indicate the path followed by soil resistance values when the displacement increases from zero to a maximum positive value dMax, then decreases until a minimum negative value dmin is reached, and closes the cycle in the point correspondent to the displacement d.

this case, when pipeline motions occur in an arbitrary direction, the elastic deflection limit is assumed to be a circular boundary with radius d, such that no sliding occurs if the deflection vector lies within this circle. The force necessary to cause sliding would then be N. In the general case of anisotropic friction, this formulation defines values (a l) and (da dl) corresponding respectively to the axial and lateral directions of the pipeline. In this case, axial and lateral deflections are coupled and the elastic deflection limit is assumed to be an elliptic boundary defined by da and dl. The maximum value of soil resistance, i.e. the force necessary to initiate sliding, varies on this ellipse [4]. The following equation summarizes the calculation of the soilresistance forces fs under the considered anisotropic formulation: fsai = a ksi uai fsli = l ksi uli where subscript i = 1,2 refers to each element node. The coefficients ksi are given by ksi = N i (uai) + (uli)
2 2

(6) (7)

; i = 1,2

(8)

where N is the equivalent nodal load corresponding to the pipeline submerged weight acting on the node, and the value i is given by

Ri , if Ri < 1 i = ; Ri = 1 , if Ri 1

uai uli d + d ; i = 1,2 a l

(9)

The axial and lateral displacement components uai and uli are defined as _ _ (10) uai = uai uai ; uli = uli uli where u ai and u li are displacement values, in the axial and lateral directions respectively, that represent the coordinates of the origin of the ellipse defining the elastic boundary. These values remain unchanged while the point (uai uli) is within the ellipse. Whenever the point (uai uli) lies outside the ellipse, the values of u ai and u li are appropriately changed to redefine the elastic boundary. The computational system can automatically insert scalars acting on every node of the finite element mesh, and therefore modeling the soil-pipeline interaction requires from the user only the values (a l) and (da dl). It is recalled that scalars acting as contact springs on the vertical direction are also automatically inserted on every node of the finite element mesh.

Figure 5 Elastoplastic behavior. In the particular case of isotropic friction only one value of the coefficient and the parameter d would be considered, independent of the direction of the horizontal displacement. In

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NUMERICAL EXAMPLES The proposed contact model has been incorporated into a computer program for the coupled static and dynamic analysis of floating offshore systems. Several small preliminary problems have been run to test the validity of the algorithms. A variety of examples involving complex configurations and nonlinear boundary conditions were also analyzed, including those presented in this section.
Reeling Model

The first example consists of a hose storage reel. The hose reel is a steel plate drum and a support frame that is built up from beams. The starboard bearing has a hollow shaft to allow passage of crude oil piping to the swivel. A control desk from which the hose reel can be operated is mounted on the upper platform. A spooling device allows proper winding of the hose onto the drum. Both drum and spooling device are hydraulically driven at variable speed. The presented contact model is applied to the reel shown in Figure 6, belonging to the FPSO MARLIM SUL hove anchor located in the Marlim Sul Field in the Campos Basin, 68 miles off the coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro, offshore Brazil.

Figure 7 Reeling Model. Table 1 Main geometric characteristics of the Hose Reel
Properties Floating hose length to be stored [m] Hose inside diameter [inch] Hose outside diameter (floating material) [mm] Drum diameter [mm] Drum length (between flanges) [mm] Overall length hose reel [mm] Overall width hose reel [mm] Overall height hose reel [mm] Total mass hose reel (including filled hose) [ton] Values 250 20 850 7,200 5,500 13,000 12,800 11,900 150

Table 2 Physical and geometric characteristics of the hose

Segment Hose EI (t.m2) EA (t) 96925 Wair (t/m) 0.2734 Wwater (t/m) 0.2381 CD 1,7 CM 2,0

Figure 6 Hose Reel In this model, the Reel is modeled to be the contact volume and the floating hose is modeled by a finite element mesh. The idea is to link one of the hoses end to the reel end apply an angular velocity on it, as shown in Figure 7. With this, it is possible to observe all stages of the reeling procedure. It should be noted that the focus here is not the line analysis, but investigate the efficiency of the contact model. Reel and hose characteristics The main characteristics of the reel and the floating hose are in Table 1. The geometrical model of the reel was created in a mesh generator program, in which all elements are triangular (as discussed previously), to represent the actual dimensions of the structure. The finite element discretization of the hose is made by nonlinear frame elements based in a co-rotational formulation [5] that allows the consideration of the flexional stiffness of the hose. The physical properties of the hose and its floating material are shown in Table 2.

Performed Simulations A dynamic simulation was performed with the hose reel model to present the first results of the efficiency of the contact procedure during the dynamic analysis. To perform the analysis, a vertical line modeled the hose and one of its ends was linked to the reel, being tangent to its radius, as shown in Figure 7. Once connected, the reel begins to gyrate by action of a prescribed angular displacement in its axis. The angular velocity is kept constant. The application of a small current load caused the hose to roll up in cycles without overlapping, without the need to use a guide. A perfect contact between hose and reel is observed during the reeling process as shown in Figures 8 and 9.

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Figure 8 One cycle.

However, this kind of configuration may become a problem if the current load carries the hose and positions it under an emergency boat area. In an emergency situation, this could hinder the crew from safely exiting the ship. For a numerical simulation to be able to evaluate the possibility of this situation, the contact model presented here must be employed to consider the contact between the hose and the hull of the ship. Therefore, the objective here is to perform a dynamic analysis of a stowed hose under the action of current effects, representing the approximation and contact of the hose with the hull. With this, one can identify if the final configuration for the line represents a danger in an emergency situation. Geometric Characteristics of the Floating Unit To represent an offshore unit carrying a stowed hose, VLCC hull with the characteristics shown in Table 3 is considered. The hull is modeled by a triangular mesh generator program. Only the stern and a few lateral areas near the water surface that could possibly be reached by the length of the line are considered by the contact algorithm. The remainder of the elements of the mesh of the hull are considered only for visualization purposes, but are not considered by the contact model. This provides more efficiency to the contact algorithm once the search for contact is made in a smaller domain. Table 3 Main geometric characteristics of the Ship
Propriety Drought (m) Height (m) Beam (m) Length Values (real scale) 21 27 55 320

Figure 9 Several cycles.

Floating Offloading Hose

Offloading hoses are pipes used to transport fluids, resultants of the petroleum explotation process, from a floating offshore system to another, in general, from a storage unit to a transport unit [6]. Before the offloading operation, the hose has a stowed configuration, as shown in Figure 10. This configuration is generated using dynamic relaxation techniques as proposed in [7].

Hose Characteristics The hose is modeled by one segment with distributed buoyancy. The properties are present on Table 4. Table 4 Geometric and Physical characteristics of the hose
Segment Length (m) 278.5 Nominal Diam.(In) 10 EA (t) 6300 EI (t.m2) 20 Weight in air (t/m) 0.12 Wet Weight (t/m) -0.08 CD 1.2 CM 2.0

Performed Simulations The floating hose is modeled by mesh of frame FE to consider its axial and bending stiffness. A dynamic simulation was performed applying environmental loading of current and wave as pointed in Table 5.

Figure 10 Offloading floating hose.

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Table 5 Environmental conditions applied on the system

Depth (m) 0 Current Profile Speed (m/s) Going to Azimuth (degrees) 90 90 90 Azimuth (degrees) 0

S-Lay installation

100
400

0.72 0.61
0

E E E

H 5

Regular Wave Coming Tp from 10 S

The ship has Azimuth of 0 degrees (pointed to North), making the current act obliquely on the system, and consequently dragging the hose to a contact with the hull. Figure 11 shows the hose configuration after colliding with the hull of the ship. The same analysis is now made, without considering the contact between the hose and the hull. The resulting configuration is shown in Figure 12.

Pipelines in S-Lay installation operations are not easy to simulate numerically, since the contact mechanism between the pipeline and the launching structure is complex, specified only in some points of the ramp and stinger. This section illustrates the use of the contact algorithm for an accurate numerical solution of such problem. Figures 13, 14, and 15 illustrate the complexity of the contact problem. Figure 14 shows that all the rollerboxes need to be considered in the contact analysis to avoid the line pass through the ramp. The lateral cylinders of a rollerbox allow the line to have its lateral displacements restricted, keeping the line in a design area.

Figure 13 Typical S-Lay Model.

Figure 11 Hose-Hull contact model.

Figure 12 Configuration without contact modeling. Several points stress the relevance of the use of an efficient contact algorithm: it allows the engineer to make a better choice for the design of a stowed hose, by providing the assessment of the possibility of a hose hindering the use of emergency boats. Moreover, it can also help the engineer to recommend a better positioning of the emergency boats in a new design of this kind of floating unit.

Figure 14 Rollerbox detail. Figure 15 presents the initialization of the installation of a pipeline in a S-Lay configuration, employing a tugboat and a launch barge. The pipeline is represented by a finite element mesh, while the floating units can be represented by the assembly and solution of its equations of motion, coupled to the FEM model of the pipeline. In the application presented here, since the focus is on the contact model, the units are represented simply by motion RAOs.

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Also, the stinger and its components could be modeled by frame elements to represent their elasticity; however in this application they are considered as rigid body / contact volumes. The motions of the barge are automatically transferred to the stinger. In a more refined model with the stinger modeled by frame elements, the line reactions would be transferred to the stinger on each support point and all deformation and internal efforts of the stinger would be computed.

Figure 15 Initizalization of the S-Lay installation. In the simulation, the laybarge moves in a defined direction making the pipeline to slide on the rollerboxes until the line touches the soil and reaches the S-Lay configuration (as shown in Figure 16).This means that in the non-linear contact behavior of the line interacting with the launching structure and with the soil can always be considered during the coupled dynamic analysis.

lines and/or different platforms in the same model. The generalized contact model presented here avoids some limitations of the computational tools traditionally used for the static and dynamic analysis of offshore structures. Also, this tool provides the engineer with several relevant information at preliminary design stages. The two main advantages of the presented contact model may be summarized as follows: (1) Because contact is accounted for by incorporation of stiffness terms rather than by application of boundary conditions, the response of the structure at the contacts points remains a solution variable (that is, it is not prescribed). This has the effect of eliminating the high frequency noise phenomenon associated to contact with rigid surfaces and the consequent requirement to use very small timesteps. (2) The use of stiffness terms for contact modeling means that it is a straightforward matter to model contact with multiple surfaces (which can be at any orientation). This means that it is possible to model contact with multiple surfaces. In summary, the presented contact algorithm was shown to be quite efficient and robust, and comprises an important contribution to the analysis and design of offshore systems with flexible lines such as mooring lines, risers and hoses. The resulting numerical tool is able to provide valuable knowledge for the design of safe offshore operations. REFERENCES [1] CORRA, F., N., Application of Hybrid Methodologies in Parametric Studies on the Behavior of Offshore Systems (In Portuguese). M.Sc Thesis, COPPE/UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, 2003. [2] OROURKE, J. Computational Geometry in C, Massachusetts, Cambridge University Press, 1997. [3] GREALISH, F., LANG, D., CONNOLLY, A., LANE, M., Advances in Contact Modelling for Simulation of Deepwater pipeline Installation, Rio Pipeline Conference & Exposition, October 17-19, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2005. [4] Michalopoulos, C.D. Nonlinear Random Response of Marine Pipelines in Contact with the Seabed, in Proceedings of the Fifth Intnl. Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering (OMAE) Symposium, ASME, 1986, Vol. III, 639-646. [5] CRISFIELD, M. A., A Consistent Co-Rotational Formulation for Non-Linear, Three-Dimensional, BeamElements, Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg., vol. 81, pp. 131-150, 1990. [6] COSTA, A. P. S., ROLO, L.F.A., GOULART, M.P., SILVA, S.H.S.C., Offshore Loading Trends In Brazil, World Maritime Technology Conference, 2002. [7] SILVA, D. M. L., Generation of initial stable configurations of flexible lines by Dynamic Relaxation Methods (In Portuguese). M.Sc thesis, COPPE/UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, 2005.

Figure 16 S-Lay installation. FINAL REMARKS This work presented a tool intended to improve the applicability and accuracy of coupled analysis of offshore floating units, making the simulations more realistic. Such tool represents, during the dynamic analysis, the contact between lines and the platform, as well as the contact involving different

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