g Hawsers

TTI offers specialist services to operators of Single Point Mooring terminals with particular
emphasis on optimisation of mooring hawser replacement strategies.

• Mooring system design / re-design

• Hawser selection and specification
• Establishment of hawser retirement criteria
• Fatigue life and residual strength prediction
• Hawser failure investigation and analysis
• Inspection and testing of hawsers

Deep Water Moorings

The engineering of vessel moorings in very deep waters is challenging and requires innovative
solutions. Novel arrangements and synthetic materials characterise deepwater mooring solutions
and TTI are at the forefront of this technology having lead or contributed to most of the recent
collaborative research projects in this area.

• Fibre Tethers 2000.

• DEEPSTAR Fibre Rope Mooring Trial.
• Engineer’s Design Guide for Deepwater Fibre Moorings.
• Large Scale Testing of Fibre Mooring Ropes
• Durability of Polyester Mooring Ropes

There are two particular concepts, which adopted separately or combined, have proved to offer
considerable scope for mooring in very deep waters:

• Taut Leg Moorings

• Synthetic Rope Moorings

Taut Leg Moorings

TTI defines a taut leg as one where the line rises from the anchor under normal pretension, so
there is no grounded line to lift off the seabed as line tension increases. Because of this, taut
moorings work in a fundamentally different way to catenary moorings, their compliance deriving
mainly from the elastic stretch of the lines, whereas a catenary mooring derives its compliance
from the change in suspended line weight.

A taut mooring leg will usually have an angle of between 30 and 45 degrees to horizontal at the
vessel (determined from design considerations) and will exhibit fairly linear load-excursion
characteristics which are related to this angle and the stiffness of the line.

Because taut moorings have a much more linear stiffness than the progressively stiffening
catenary systems, offsets under mean load can be better controlled and vessel motions do not
induce such a high proportion of total line tensions.
A further advantage is the better load sharing between adjacent lines than is typical of a catenary
array, so improving overall efficiency of the system.

The taut mooring also overcomes another limitation of deepwater catenarys by having much
shorter lines. Scopes of under 2, compared to 5 or more with catenary systems, save material and
give a more compact seabed footprint.

The lines of a taut mooring need to have sufficient elasticity to absorb the vessel wave motions
without over loading. Where motions are low either because of benign wave environment (eg.
West Africa or Brazil) or because of the vessel characteristics, (as a SPAR for example), wire
ropes may be appropriate, particularly in deep water where there is the line length to develop
enough stretch. However, the weight of steel mooring wires in very deep waters may become too
much of a penalty on the vessel payload and, furthermore, strength utilisation is reduced as more
of the line tension capacity will be used in keeping the wire taut.

Synthetic Rope Moorings

Synthetic fibre ropes offer a potential solution to the weight problems of using steel mooring
lines in deepwater as they have a very low weight in water.

Also, compared to steel, there are a vary large number of synthetic fibre material compositions
with a wide range of material properties. A synthetic rope can therefore be designed to have
properties that match the mooring requirements.

Materials that have potential for mooring line application include:

• Nylon
• Polyester
• Aramid (Kevlar)
• Liquid Crystal Polymer
• High Modulus Polyethylene (HMPE)

Yarns of these synthetic materials may be built into ropes using a number of constructions, some
of which are suited to particular fibres.

Some of the issues which affect choice of yarn material and the rope construction are:

• Load-extension behaviour
• Internal heating
• Durability & fatigue endurance
• Termination & end fittings
• Wear & abrasion
• Handling & installation

Synthetic ropes can be used as a lightweight insert in a catenary mooring (usually having a chain
catenary segment touching down on the seabed). However, their real potential lies in taut
moorings where ropes combining low weight and low elastic modulus with good durability
characteristics, will enable efficient mooring systems to be designed for a whole range of water
depth and environmental conditions.

The currently favoured synthetic material is polyester for reasons of cost and good fatigue
endurance. Polyester has also been used in rope constructions for several years, and the issues of
manufacture and end termination for large rope sizes have been satisfactorily resolved. Polyester
ropes also have elasticity in the range most suitable for taut mooring of vessels with typical wave
motions in very deep and ultra deep water depths up to around 1500 metres (5000 feet).

OPTIMOOR
TTI have developed an advanced computer program OPTIMOOR for analysing the complex
behaviour of moored vessels under any environmental conditions. The software enables rapid
assessment of moorings to OCIMF requirements and is licensed to port operators worldwide.
Both quayside and offshore moorings are handled by OPTIMOOR.