Proceedings of the ASME 2012 31st International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering
OMAE2012
WORLDWIDE APPROXIMATIONS OF CURRENT PROFILES
FOR STEEL RISER DESIGN - THE WACUP PROJECT
Marc Prevosto George Z. Forristall
Ifremer Forocean
Brest, France Camden, ME, USA
Christelle Herry Gavin Harte Liam Harrington-Missin
Actimar MCS Kenny
Brest, France Galway, Ireland
ABSTRACT
This paper describes the objectives and methodology of the
WACUP (Worldwide Approximations of Current Profiles) Joint
Industry Project. The project goal is to establish best practice
for reducing large current profile databases into a smaller, rep-
resentative set of profiles for riser design. We studied the use
of the following three techniques for comparing and reducing
measured in-situ databases: Empirical Orthogonal Function
(EOF), Self Organizing Maps (SOM) and classical Current
Profile Characterisation (CPC). We evaluated the skill of these
three techniques in estimating Vortex Induced Vibration (VIV)
fatigue damage to a Steel Catenary Riser (SCR). Our measure
of skill was the comparison of the results from the reduced data
sets with results from the original complete database. The stan-
dard techniques were modified and accuracy was im-
proved. The role of numerical current models to complement
in-situ measurements in riser design was also assessed.
INTRODUCTION
The design of catenary risers, riser towers, and export lines
is key to oil and gas production in the deep ocean. Winds,
waves, surface currents and current profiles are essential inputs
to the design of these riser systems. With regards to current
loading, the variety and abundance of current profiles can make
it difficult to determine which profiles are most appropriate for
determining extreme and fatigue loading on risers. The choices
become increasingly difficult on the frontier of deepwater oil
and gas developments as risers are increasingly being required
to successfully operate in harsher environments and deep-
er water. However, longer and more detailed current measure-
ments from in-situ deployments continue to become avail-
able. Two or three year current profile records are now com-
mon.
1 Copyright © 2012 by ASME
July 1-6, 2012, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
OMAE2012-8
Gus Jeans
Fugro GEOS
Wallingford, UK
Patrick Dooley
Fugro GEOS MCS Kenny
Wallingford, UK Galway, Ireland
Risers such as steel catenary risers (SCRs), top-tensioned
risers (TTRs), drilling risers, hybrid risers and flexible risers
may be installed in a variety of configurations depending on the
application. Steel risers are susceptible to fatigue from cur-
rents, but flexible risers are not normally considered to be sus-
ceptible to VIV. The significance of long-term current load
depends on the riser type and design, and may also drive the
requirement for VIV strakes or fairings, which are often an
unwanted complication in the design.
The detail required for current specification depends on the
margins of safety in the design. A riser should be designed to
have known safety margins with respect to its ultimate fatigue
and strength performance; therefore quantifying the loads as
accurately as possible over the lifetime of the riser is very im-
portant. This is particularly the case in harsh environments or
deepwater where design feasibility is marginal, and it is desir-
able to remove as much unnecessary conservatism from the
design as possible.
A simplified approach to designing for long-term current
loading is appropriate when the design margins are
large. However, with the detailed databases that have come
available with greater experience in deepwater, we can now
reduce the uncertainties and eliminate some of the unnecessary
conservatism that came with a more simplified approach. Riser
designs that are required for deepwater and harsh environments
require the reduced design conservatism that can be gained
from having the best possible quality of data available to the
riser designers. A key area where we can achieve improved
design margins is improving our measurement and assessment
of long-term current loading. However, considering thousands
of measured or hindcast currents and waves in a design is com-
putationally intensive. It is more efficient to combine response-
based design with a comprehensive characterization of the
long-term current variability.
 VIV design is improved by a more detailed yet computa-
tionally efficient description of the current environment and
system response. Sometimes the VIV analysis may compro-
mise the design or it may determine the feasibility of the riser.
In some cases significant lengths of VIV strakes or fairings
may be required. This can be undesirable, particularly for drill-
ing risers. On the other hand, a simplified approach that uses a
small number of current profiles can be appropriate for riser
systems located in offshore regions where VIV is generally not
a large issue. In these systems, it is possible to get an adequate
demonstration of system feasibility by making a few, simple,
conservative assumptions about shape combined with a small
number of VIV analyses.
Common design practice often considers several hundred
profiles. A typical year long set of measurements often con-
tains more than 50,000 individual profiles, which are often
“condensed” into less than a few hundred profiles. Steel cate-
nary risers (SCRs) are a special case. Reduction techniques for
catenary riser design are complicated because current direction
can be critical and must not be lost. For all riser types, the
most serious limitation of the data reduction techniques that are
being widely used is that they cannot represent extreme current
events at the return period levels that are required for engineer-
ing design.
To-date, the accepted practice has been to select a set of
individual depths for independent modelling of climatology
and extreme values. These choices were necessary when we
had less detailed data, but they loose the spatial coherence of
the vertical profile. This means that design conditions are often
unnecessarily conservative.
The first attempts to simplify the data while conserving
spatial coherence used Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOF)
(Forristall and Cooper, 1997 [1]). That study used measure-
ments from west of the Shetland Islands. Jeans et al. [2] used
the EOF methodology for deep-water sites in the Faeroe-
Shetland Channel. Both studies found that that the first two or
three modes account for most of the variability in the profile
shapes and that the joint probabilities of the EOF amplitudes
yield reliable design conditions. Where the vertical structure of
the processes is simple, EOF methods yield an efficient, useful
way of characterizing both extreme currents and those for day-
to-day operations.
In deep offshore West Africa, Meling et al. [3] saw a large
variability in current speed and direction. They found that
many more than two or three EOF modes were needed to ac-
count for the current profile shapes. It would be better in that
case to find another method to categorize the pro-
files. Alternatively, perhaps finding a suitable way to pre-
process the profile database could make an EOF analysis suc-
cessful. The data could be partitioned by time scale, location
above and below the thermocline, or by the magnitude of the
response before the EOF analysis.
2 Copyright © 2012 by ASME
Conditional Current Analysis (CCA) is a recently devel-
oped method for charactising vertically coherent extreme pro-
files (Winterstein et al. [4]). Coherence is conserved using
linear regression to determine relationships between different
levels, providing a different set of coherent profiles associated
with extremes at each depth level.
Although current direction has important effects on struc-
tures, it is often ignored because it greatly complicates analysis
and modelling, in particular for VIV. Response based design
approaches could be used with a simplified calculation of the
dynamic or static behaviour of the riser to help classification or
EOF approximation of directional profiles.
WACUP PROJECT
The purpose of WACUP is to establish a new set of best
practices for simplifying and reducing the most important in-
formation in measured in-situ databases. Improving simplifica-
tion and reduction will improve the criteria for riser de-
sign. The strategy is to study and compare four oceanographi-
cally different test cases that have large, detailed measured in-
situ databases. The four test cases are in 1) the Gulf of Mexico;
2) the Norwegian North Sea; 3) offshore Brazil and 4) offshore
Angola. The project has focussed on steel catenary risers
(SCRs) though the basic principles of the investigation are ap-
plicable to other common riser types, including as TTRs, drill-
ing risers or hybrids.
The WACUP project is organised in several work pack-
ages: The first one is the collection and quality check of the in
situ databases, as well as state of the art and choice of available
numerical models for comparison. The second aims at describ-
ing, analysing and comparing the databases: In-situ versus
numerical, time scale decomposition, spatial variability. The
following WP has developed and run the tools for the three
types of classification / reduction techniques of current profiles
selected for the project: Characteristic Current Profiles (CPC),
Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOF), Self Organizing Maps
(SOM). The results are used in a different work package, main-
ly from EOF, to produce histograms and fitted statistical prop-
erties and distributions of approximate profiles. A last task was
to define the riser models then run VIV fatigue and extreme
analyses on raw and reduced databases.
DATABASES
In situ measurements
Each participating company provided a database of in-situ
current measurements representative of one the four loca-
tions. The quality of these data varied, with several initially
containing numerous invalid records as a result of the quality
control procedures. All datasets were brought to a common
“Gold Standard” time series of complete current profiles, via
various infilling algorithms. The following provides a summary
of each database.
 Gulf of Mexico. This database is situated in approxi-
mately 3350 m of water and spans 1 April 2003 to 9 April
2004. After infilling, it consists of approximately 9000 com-
plete profiles which are collected in hourly intervals. The up-
per 370 m is measured by an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler
(ADCP) recording currents from 40 m to 368 m below mean
sel level in 8 m bin intervals. Below that, 7 single point in-
struments record currents at 750 m, 1000 m, 1500 m, 2000 m,
2500 m, 2900 m and 3250 m. In total, 49 individual levels are
measured.
The Gulf of Mexico is subjected to a number of oceano-
graphic phenomena that will impact the design and fatigue life
of an installation. Captured within this dataset are inertial cur-
rents, Loop Current Eddies and suspected Topographic Rosby
Waves. Typically, the inertial currents are seen propagating
from a near-surface event, be it high winds or Loop Current
Eddy Impact, down to approximately 300 m. In addition, deep-
water events that cover the lower 2500 m lasting for approxi-
mately 4 days are observed a number of times during the meas-
urement campaign.
Norwegian North Sea. This database is situated in ap-
proximately 370 m of water and spans two periods: 5 May
2005 to 11 June 2006 and 19 March 2009 to 19 September
2010. After infilling, it consists of approximately 136,000
complete profiles which are collected in 10-min intervals. The
entire water column is measured using a number of ADCPs and
single point current meters. Currents from 1.5 m below MSL
to 3.0 m above seabed are measured in approximately 5 m bin
intervals. In total, 69 individual levels are measured
Like much of the North Sea, at this location the currents
are dominated by semi-diurnal tidal streams. However,
stronger non-tidal currents are also found, typically trapped in
the upper 50 m of the water column.
Offshore Brazil. This database is situated in approxi-
mately 1400 m of water and spans 1 October 2004 to 19 Sep-
tember 2005. After infilling, it consists of approximately 8500
complete profiles which are collected in hourly intervals. The
upper 100 m is measured by an ADCP recording currents from
23.5 m to 93.5 m below mean seal level in 10 m bin inter-
vals. Below that, 4 single point instruments record currents at
350 m, 800 m, 1250 m and 1400 m. In total, 12 individual lev-
els are measured. This dataset is described in more detail in
another OMAE 2012 paper by Jeans et al [5].
A weak western boundary current, The Brazil Current, runs
parallel to the coastline along the coast of Brazil from ap-
proximately 09° South to 38° South where it collides with the
northward flowing Falkland Current. This mesoscale feature
dominates the upper 100 m of this dataset where currents are
almost continually flowing towards the southwest. Below this
the currents weaken significantly at the 350 m layer before
intensifying again at approximately 800 m where it is believed
the Intermediate Western Boundary Current flows predomi-
nantly towards the northwest to north. Below 800 m the cur-
rent again becomes weaker but remains generally flowing to-
wards the north.
3 Copyright © 2012 by ASME
Offshore Angola. This database is situated in approxi-
mately 1450 m of water and spans 22 May 2002 to 24 May
2003. After infilling, it consists of approximately 52,000 com-
plete profiles which are collected in 10-min intervals. The up-
per 670 m is measured by two ADCPs recording currents from
6 m to 40 m below mean seal level in 2 m bin intervals and
from 74 m to 662 m in 12 m bin intervals. Below that, 4 single
point instruments record currents at 785 m, 985 m, 1185 m and
1370 m. In total, 72 individual levels are measured.
With the fine resolution of the upper 40 m of this dataset,
complex layers of current are observed. The very near surface
currents (< 20 m below MSL) have no clear dominant direction
which is suspected to be due to atmospheric interac-
tions. Between 20 m and 40 m the currents flow generally to-
wards the southeast before switching to flowing towards the
northwest from 70 m downwards. These complex bands of
current are a consequence of the dynamic ocean features found
in this region, namely, the Angola Current, the influence of
seasonal upwelling off the Namibian Coast and the fresh water
input of the Congo River to name but a few. However, these
features are restricted to the upper few hundreds meters below
which currents speeds are typically very low and uniform with
depth.
Numerical models
The most relevant official 3D ocean global or large scale
models which cover Brazil, Shetland island, West Africa and
the Gulf of Mexico are gathered in Tab. 1.
ECCO data have the longest time coverage. NCOM data
present the highest time resolution but only the last 18 days are
freely available on the web. Concerning the spatial resolution,
HYCOM, RTOFS and MERCATOR data are the most rele-
vant. In addition, RTOFS data are issued from a system which
uses high quality freshwater inputs. The Japanese model
MOVE/MRI presents a high vertical resolution but is not freely
available. The TOPAZ system has an advanced assimilation
module based on EnKF whereas C-NOOFS model and ORCA
data do not take into account genuine data. Finally, C-NOOFS
and FOAM results are not freely available on the web but only
charts are provided. Besides, the ocean model from the Uni-
versity of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and Woods Hole Oceano-
graphic Institution (global FVCOM) should be added to this
list, but it is only permitted for use in non-commercial aca-
demic research.
The time and spatial resolutions of the different models
presented here do not enable the study of the variability of all
the physical processes governing the hydrodynamics. Thus,
wind induced circulation cannot be well reproduced with at-
mospheric forcing with a too low spatial resolution. Besides,
the time sampling of these modelled data do not enable the
study of tidal effects. Therefore, it is worth mentioning that
nested regional models in such global configurations can be a
solution to reproduce the real spatio-temporal variability of the
ocean currents. It is difficult to list all the 3D regional models
developed over the areas of interest since they are not necessar-
ily open to public. Five of them can be mentioned:
 The Guinea model (developed in France)
 The Southern Africa Experiment (developed in France)
 The Mohn-Sverdrup Center Gulf of Mexico HYCOM
model (developed in Norway)
 The WANE model (from the Nansen Environmental
and Remote Sensing Centre-NERSC)
 The NEXT modelled data (by Danish Hydraulic
Institute & Oceanweather)
Many efforts have been carried out by research institutes or
private companies to validate their models. Published valida-
tions emphasize the ability of models to well reproduce tem-
perature, salinity and water mass transport. The models which
assimilate data are undoubtedly closest to the reality than the
others. Nevertheless, for some models (BLUElink, C-NOOFS,
FOAM, ORCA, RTOFS), there is little information about cur-
rent validation.
For the purposes of WACUP, the Hybrid Coordinate Ocean
Model (HYCOM) model was selected for comparison with in-
situ current data sets. HYCOM [6] is a 3D global model with
1/12° spatial resolution and 32 levels on the vertical. Its ba-
thymetry is derived from a digital terrain dataset (AVO-NRL
DBDB2). The model takes into account atmospheric forcing
(from NOGAPS) and rivers runoff (from climatology val-
ues). It assimilates satellite altimeter observations (Jason,
GFO, Envisat), satellite and in-situ Sea Surface Temperature
and in-situ temperature and salinity profiles (XBTs, ARGO
floats, moored buoys).
The validation studies showed that model profiles require
careful validation and calibration before being used to derive
criteria for riser design applications. The results are described
by Jeans et al [5] for the dataset offshore Brazil. In summary,
current speeds were underestimated by typically a factor of
two, while current directions were better represented.

1 Table 1. MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF 13 GLOBAL MODELS.

Time Time
Description Spatial resolution resolution Spatial coverage coverage availibility

Based on MOM4.0d developed from 1° to 1/10° Oct. 1992

BLUElink (Australia) Twice per week Global free with register
at GFDL in Princeton around Australia present

1/4° and 1/12° since Dec. 2006

C-NOOFS (Canada) Based on NEMO 1.09 1 day Northwest Atlantic charts only
automn 2008 present
ECCO-JPL (Jet Propulsion 1993
Based on MITGCM model 1° 10 days Global free
Lab., US) present
developed at the Center for
ECCO2 (initiated by the global change science of MIT 1/4° 1 month Global 1992-2007 free
NASA, US)
1/4° Global
FOAM (Argonne National 1997
Based on NEMO 1.09 1 day North Atl. + Med. + charts only
Laboratory, US) 1/12° present
Indian
1/12° global HYCOM (Naval Based on HYCOM model Nov. 2003
1/12° 1 day Global free
Research Lab., US) developed at RSMAS present

1/4 ° Global
Based on NEMO (OPA9 + 2007
MERCATOR (France) 1 day North and Trop Atl. subject to charges
LIM) 1/12° present
and Mediterranean
An ocean data assimilation 1° Global
MOVE/MRI.COM (Japan 1948 not open to the
system based on MRI 1 day Western North
Meteorological Agency, Japan) 1/2°-1/10° present public
community ocean model Pacific
Based on POM model
NCOM ( Naval Research Lab., Oct. 2001 last 18 days freely
develeped at Princeton 1/8° 6 hours Global
US) present available
University
ORCA025-DRAKKAR Based on NEMO system which 1958 - free (under
(LODYC team at Paris 6 1/4° 5 days global
universityFrance)
includes OPA9.0 model 2004 conditions)

RTOFS (Marine Modeling and

Analysis Branch of the 1 day (3D data) Jun. 2006 last two months
Based on HYCOM model 1/12° Atlantic ocean
Environmental Modeling or 1 h (surface) present freely available
Center, US)

SODA (Dept. of Atmospheric Based on the Parallel Ocean

and Oceanic Science at the Program POP-1.4 model 1/2° 1 month global 1958 2007 free
University of Maryland, US) developed at LANL, US

TOPAZ (Mohn-Sverdrup North Atlantic and 2003

Center / Nansen Center, Based on HYCOM 1/8° 1 day free
NORWAY)
Artic Ocean present

4 Copyright © 2012 by ASME

TECHNIQUES OF CLASSIFICATION
Characteristic Current Profiles
The Characteristic Current Profile (CPC) algorithms were
developed in response to the increasing demand to reduce large
in-situ current time series datasets into smaller characteristic
datasets whilst retaining the key information needed for riser
fatigue and design studies. Quite simply, it attempts to summa-
rize many thousands of profiles into a reduced number of char-
acteristic profiles with an associated percentage occurrence.
WACUP utilised the established method of direct CPC de-
scribed by Jeans et al. [2]. The direct method has proven effec-
tive when the EOF method fails to capture the dominant char-
acteristics of flow in just a few modes (e.g. Jeans & Cooper,
2005 [7]). For each current velocity time series, a number of
possible states are defined at each selected depth level, and
possible characteristic profiles are constructed from every per-
mutation of these states. The number of measured profiles cor-
responding to each of these possible characteristic profiles is
then counted and percentage occurrence values derived. The
major disadvantage of this technique, compared to the EOF
approach (described below), is the fact that a relatively small
number of depth levels must be selected to prevent the number
of possible profiles becoming too large. The resulting charac-
teristic profiles will therefore generally have lower vertical
resolution than those derived using the EOF approach, in which
there is no limit to the number of depth levels that can be in-
cluded.
Even when the current regime at a particular location can
be represented well by just a few EOF modes, there may still be
a case for using the direct approach if the characteristic profiles
are to be used for VIV analysis. The quantity normally used to
assess the number of modes required is the percentage of the
variance of the original signal that is reproduced in the recon-
struction. Even when this value is high, there will be some rare
profiles that are not well reconstructed, in which the influence
of higher modes is critical. These profiles are likely to have
complex vertical structures due to the influence of higher
modes, so using just a few modes to represent them effectively
smoothes out the fine vertical structure. Such vertical smooth-
ing might make these profiles more critical for VIV, by produc-
ing a more slab like profile, in which case the EOF method
would introduce additional conservatism. Although the misrep-
resented profiles are likely to be rare, this is not a basis for re-
moving them because a few rare profiles can sometimes lead to
the greatest fatigue damage in a riser.
There are, however, several arguments in favour of the
EOF approach for VIV. In some cases vertical smoothing may
be desirable, to remove noise in measured data. Furthermore,
the limitations of the EOF approach may sometimes be prefer-
able to the low vertical resolution associated with the alterna-
tive. Finally, approximations made during criteria derivation
may sometimes be less critical than the uncertainties associated
with some VIV models.
5 Copyright © 2012 by ASME
Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOF)
EOF, or PCA (Principal Component Analysis), is now a
well-known technique for simplifying a dataset, by reducing
multidimensional datasets to lower dimensions for analysis (see
Jolliffe [8]).
More precisely, EOF is a linear transformation that trans-
forms the data to a new coordinate system such that the greatest
variance by any projection of the data comes to lie on the first
coordinate (called the first principal component or EOF), the
second greatest variance on the second coordinate, and so
on. EOF can be used for dimensionality reduction in a dataset
while retaining those characteristics of the dataset that contrib-
ute most to its variance, by keeping lower-order principal com-
ponents and ignoring higher-order ones. Such low-order com-
ponents often contain the “most important” aspects (features)
of the data.
The EOFs are calculated such that the Euclidian norm of
the difference between the original data matrix (constructed
with the current profiles as columns) and the approximated one
is minimized. This is simply obtained by a truncated singular
value decomposition (SVD).
For example if only the two first EOFs 1 ( z ) and  2 ( z ) are
retained, each current profile c(z ) , with z the water depth, is
approximated by
(1) c( z )  11 ( z )   2 2 ( z ) (1)
and the approximated current profile series is completely de-
fined by the two time series of the EOF coeffi-
cients 1 (t ) ,  2 (t ) and the two EOFs.
If directional profiles are considered, c(z ) can be consid-
ered complex or as a concatenated vector
c ( z ) 
(2) c( z )  cn ( z )  ice ( z ) or c( z )   n  (2)
ce ( z ) 
with cn (z ) , ce (z ) the north and east components. In the complex
case, the coefficients  i are also complex.
After the choice of the number n of EOFs is determined,
the reduction of the database is made in two steps. First, the
calculation of the nD histogram of the n coefficients  i , after
discretization in bins of the range of each coefficient. Secondly,
calculation of a representative of each nD bin. nD bins with no
profile in it are suppressed.
The number of bins in the first step depends of the final
number of classes wished in the compressed database.
The calculation of the representative of a nD bin can be
made i) in applying Eqn. (1) to the values  i of the center of
bin, ii) in considering the raw profile belonging to the nD bin
the closest (in an Euclidian sense) to the i) profile. The second
solution permits to avoid the problem of approximation with a
little number of EOFs. With this second solution, EOF ap-
proximation is only used for classification.
Self Organizing Maps (SOM)
Self Organizing Maps have an excellent potential for better
categorizing current profiles. The SOM process begins with a
two-component EOF analysis. Then, a nonlinear cluster analy-
sis groups the thousands of current profiles into a smaller num-
ber of clusters (Kohonen, 2001 [9]). The EOF amplitudes are
varied to produce a two dimensional array of current pro-
files. Each original profile is assigned to the EOF profile that it
best matches. The EOF profiles are modified by taking
weighted averages of the neighbouring profiles in the
grid. Then, the original profiles are re-assigned to the modified
profiles that they best match. This process is iterated until the
sum of differences between the SOM profiles and the original
profiles is minimized.
Figure 1 shows example results of SOM analysis on a sev-
en by seven grid. The blue lines are the 49 SOM profiles that
represent the data, and the faint grey lines are the original pro-
files. The stronger of the original profiles are well represented
by the SOM profiles. There is a lot of variability around some
of the weaker SOM profiles when only 49 SOM clusters are
used. The variability around the SOM profiles decreases when
more profiles are used.
1 Figure 1 REDUCTION OF CURRENT PROFILES TO
49 SOM CLUSTERS.
6 Copyright © 2012 by ASME
SCR MODEL AND FATIGUE DAMAGE CALCULATION
VIV Analysis Methodology
To evaluate the effectiveness of the current reduction tech-
niques (EOF, CPC & SOM), a vortex-induced vibration (VIV)
fatigue analysis was performed on a generic SCR design. The
fatigue life of the SCR was then calculated under the prescribed
current conditions. The effectiveness (i.e. accuracy) of the re-
duced datasets (from EOF, SOM & CPC) was then compared to
the benchmark fatigue life from the measured or “Gold Stan-
dard” dataset. The VIV analysis was carried out using Shear7
v4.5, an industry-standard software tool for the prediction of
VIV fatigue of risers [10].
The SCRs considered for the VIV analysis range from 8”
to 12” OD pipe, hung-off a vessel in a free-hanging catenary at
departure angles ranging from 8°-20°. The water depths range
from 373m - 3,350m. Details of the 8” SCR are provided in
Tab. 2 and the SCR configuration is shown in Fig. 2. A flexible
joint is included for the hang-off connection at the top of the
SCR.
The VIV fatigue analysis of an SCR is performed in a
number of steps. Firstly, the riser static configuration is estab-
lished using Flexcom, which is an industry-standard software
package for analysis of a variety of offshore structures, includ-
ing risers [11]. Afterwards, a modal analysis is conducted in
Flexcom to calculate natural frequencies, mode shapes, and
modal curvatures along the riser. This information is then fed
into the Shear7 VIV analysis where it is used to relate the re-
sponse characteristics of the riser to the current loading under
consideration.
VIV of flexible structures such as risers is a highly com-
plex phenomenon and performing a CFD-type analysis is very
computationally intensive and totally impractical with existing
technology. Therefore, software based on semi-empirical
methods - such as Shear7 and similar packages – are necessar-
ily employed by riser designers for VIV analysis.
Current directionality was not modelled in the analysis –
all currents were assumed to be facing the same direction. This
is the standard approach when using Shear7 as it is essentially a
2D program where cross-flow VIV is computed and in-plane
VIV is ignored. In reality, a riser undergoing VIV will describe
a "figure-of-eight" motion, with transverse or cross-flow
(dominant) and in-line (less dominant) components at right
angles to one another.
The 2D analysis limitation means that including direction-
ality in a riser design is difficult in that the in-line component
of the VIV fatigue may not be properly accounted for if a direc-
tional analysis is to be performed. A further limitation of
Shear7 is that it can model a current going in only one direc-
tion; in other words the velocity vectors of the current must be
aligned throughout the water column.
 For WACUP, the current direction was taken as perpen-
dicular to the plane of the SCR, thus inducing vibration in the
plane of the SCR. This is typically the most damaging and thus
conservative scenario for VIV fatigue because the current load-
ing will higher. An in-plane current requires resolution of the
current velocity into its normal and transverse components with
respect to the riser angle, therefore the speed of the current be-
comes reduced locally.
A flowchart of the analysis methodology is provided in
Fig. 3. The same methodology was applied to all the datasets
for consistency.
Water Depth: 1400m
The Shear7 input parameters used in the analysis are pro-
vided in Tab. 3. Shear7 calculates the VIV response of the riser
(A/D) under current loading and the resulting stress ranges and
cyclic frequencies of these stresses. Fatigue life was calculated
by using a fatigue S-N curve to relate the stresses in the SCR to
fatigue damage. The DNV D-class curve was used to represent
a typical SCR weld [12].
In addition to fatigue life (or damage rate, which is the in-
verse of fatigue life) and vibration amplitude, there are several
key outputs from Shear7 that can be examined to assess general
trends in the VIV fatigue response; these are: a) the dominant
mode length ratio and b) the dominant mode number. A frame-
work for using these parameters to assess fatigue criticality of a
current or set of currents has been proposed by Donnelly &
Vandiver [13]. For WACUP, the parameters are used as key
metrics for evaluating results and comparing differences be-
tween the characteristic and Gold Standard datasets.

20°   SCR Static  Current 

Configuration Profiles
Overall Riser Length: 2600m
1376.5m

Non‐Linear Finite  Frequency Domain 
Element Model  Modal Analysis  VIV Analysis 
(Flexcom) (Modes) (SHEAR7)

650m Mode Shapes  VIV 

& Curvatures Fatigue Life

1876m
4 Figure 3. FLOWCHART OF VIV ANALYSIS
2 Figure 2. SCR CONFIGURATION METHODOLOGY

VIV Fatigue from the Reduced Datasets

2 Table 2. SCR PROPERTIES The minimum SCR fatigue lives calculated for each dataset
were compared to the Gold Standard. As expected, agreement
Property Units Value between the Gold Standard analysis and the reduced datasets
SCR Pipe Outer Diameter mm 219.1 generally improves with larger numbers of characteristic pro-
SCR Pipe Inner Diameter mm 177.8 files. The results were used to evaluate the effectiveness of
Thermal Insulation Thickness mm 15 each method, the relationship between the reduc-
Insulation Density kg/m3 900 tion/characterisation methods and the Gold Standard currents
Pipe Material - Steel from a VIV context. Refinements to the reduction methods
Contents Fluid Density kg/m3 750 were also implemented. The effect of reducing the dataset by
simple temporal sub-sampling was also examined, e.g. consid-
3

ering only every 2nd or 4th current and discarding the remainder.
Results have showed the good availability of reduction
4 Table 3. SHEAR7 INPUT PARAMETERS techniques, down to 500 profiles, when optimally implemented,
Parameter Value to furnish a correct estimation of fatigue lives. Further details
Power Cut-Off 0.05 of the project results remain confidential to WACUP partici-
Reduced Velocity Bandwidth 0.4 pants and are outside the scope of this paper.
Structural Damping Coefficient 0.003
Primary Zone Amplitude Limit 0.3
Added Mass Coefficient 1.0
Strouhal Number 0.18
Zone Damping Coefficients (C1, C2, C3) 0.2, 0.18, 0.2

7 Copyright © 2012 by ASME

CONCLUSIONS
Deepwater current profile characteristics have been exam-
ined in detail at four different oil and gas development loca-
tions around the world. Comprehensive data gathering and
preparation has yielded a Gold Standard dataset at each site,
derived from one year or more of in-situ measured data.
Each Gold Standard data set comprised thousands of indi-
vidual measured profiles, which were reduced to a much small-
er volume using a range of established and innovative tech-
niques, including CPC, EOF and SOM.
Using a generic SCR design, riser VIV fatigue was com-
puted at each site for the Gold Standard and for a range of char-
acteristic profile clusters derived from each reduction tech-
nique. Comparison of the resulting riser damage estimates al-
lowed the effectiveness of each technique to be quantified. It
was possible to enhance each technique to provide more reli-
able results.
Challenges associated with definition and engineering ap-
plication of extreme current profile events response has also
been tackled. This includes assessment of validity of standard
methods. The project considers specification of extreme cur-
rent profiles for both VIV fatigue damage and static loading
design scenarios.
The WACUP project has yielded important new insights
into appropriate methodologies of current profile characterisa-
tion for riser design. The results are at present undergoing final
evaluations and the findings remain confidential to the project.
New design guidelines and recommendations are being formu-
lated in the final stages of the WACUP project.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Participants of the WACUP Joint Industry Project are
thanked for their financial support, technical input and permis-
sion to publish this paper. The participating companies are BP
Exploration Operating Company Limited, PETRÓLEO BRA-
SILEIRO S.A. - PETROBRAS, Statoil ASA and TOTAL E&P
Recherche Développement SAS.
8 Copyright © 2012 by ASME
REFERENCES
[1] Forristall, G.Z., Cooper, C.K., 1997. “Design current pro-
files using empirical orthogonal functions and inverse
FORM methods”. Proc. Offshore Technology Conf., no.
OTC 8267, pp. 11-21.
[2] Jeans, G., Grant, C., Feld, G., 2002. “Improved Current
Profile Criteria For Deepwater Riser Design”. Proc.
OMAE Conf., no. OMAE2002-28153, p. 5.
[3] Meling, T., and Eik, K., 2002. “An assessment of EOF
current scatter diagrams with respect to riser VIV fatigue
damage”. Proc. 21st OMAE Conf., p. 85-93.
[4] Winterstein, S., Haver, S., Alok, J., Kvingedal, B. & Ny-
gaard, E., 2011. “Turkstra Profiles of North Sea Currents:
Wider Than You'd Think”. Proc. OMAE Conf., no.
OMAE2011-49866.
[5] Jeans, G., Prevosto, M., Harrington-Missin, L., Maison-
dieu, C., Herry, C. and Lima, J.A.M, 2012. Deepwater
Current Profile Data Sources for Riser Engineering Off-
shore Brazil. Proceedings of the 31st International Con-
ference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering, Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil, 10-15 June 2012. OMAE2012-83400.
[6] Smedstad, O.M., Cummings, J.A.,, , Metzger, E.J., , Hurl-
burt, H.E., , Wallcraft, A.J., , Franklin, D.S., , Shriver,
J.F., , Thoppil, P.G., 2009. “Evaluation of the 1/12° Global
HYCOM Nowcast/Forecast System”. Layered Ocean
Model Workshop.
[7] Jeans, G. & Cooper, C., 2005. “Characterisation of Sub-
surface Jet Currents Offshore West Africa”. Proc. ISOPE,
vol. III, pp. 688-693.
[8] Jolliffe, I.T., 2002. “Principal Component Analysis”. Sec-
ond Edition, Springer: New York.
[9] Kohonen, T., 2001. “Self-organizing maps”. Springer Se-
ries in Information Sciences, 30, Springer Verlag, New
York.
[10] Shear7 v4.5, MIT, Massachusetts, USA, 2007.
[11] Flexcom v7.9, MCS Kenny, Galway, Ireland, 2010.
[12] DNV RP C203, 2010. “Fatigue Design of Offshore Steel
Structures”.
[13] Donnelly, J.M., Vandiver, J.K., 2003. “The Use of Scatter
Diagrams in the Selection of Design Current Profiles for a
Riser Experiencing Vortex-Induced Vibration”. Proc.
OTC, no. OTC 15395-2003.