Mooring line analysis

Mooring lines are subject to environmental forces such as: wind, current, tidal and ocean waves. Wind forces may be divided into mean wind loads, fluctuation wind loads and vortex induced vibrations. Current forces are composed of mean current loads, fluctuating current loads and Vortex induced vibrations. As well as wind and current forces, waves forces can be divided into components, these components are: The 1st order forces at wave frequencies (WF); 2nd order forces and higher order forces. 2nd order forces comprises mean wave drift forces, forces at sum frequencies (HF) and forces at lower frequencies (LF), while higher order forces comprises wetted surface effects, ringing and viscous (nonpotential). The special committee for deep water mooring presented, on their final report and recommendation to the 22nd ITTC, the following observations regarding depth sensitivity. Except for very shallow water the wave frequency motion can be considered as being independent of the water depth (see Fig. 1). Mean offset and low frequency motions will tend to increase with increasing water depth for a given mooring configuration. This is due to decreasing horizontal

stiffness of the mooring system. Mean offset and low frequency motions thereby tend to be more and more important for the extreme offset as the water depth increases (see Fig. 1). Mooring lines can be built all in chain, all wire rope, chain/wire rope combination or synthetic mooring lines. Other components can be used as a clump weight, spring buoy (see Fig. 2). According to API (1996) [1] clump weights can be incorporate to improve performance or reduce costs. By providing a concentrated weight at the point close to the seabed, a clump weight can be used to replace a portion of chain and increase the restoring force of the mooring leg, however, this application should be applied considering the potential adverse effects such as: complexity in hardware installations, undesirable dynamic responses and embedment of the clump in the seabed. On the other hand, a spring buoys can be applied to reduce weight of mooring lines that must be supported by the vessel hull, reduce effects of line dynamics in deep water and reduce vessel offset for a given line size an pretension however as well as for the clump weight, increase in the complexity in the hardware connection are the main problems together with the potential on increase loads due to dynamic load of the buoy in heavy seas..

Figures 1. (left) Mooring line types and respectively analysis and (right) horizontal motions of moored structures at different water depths, composed of wave frequency (WF), low frequency (LF), and mean offset (M) [3] . Mooring lines used nowadays can be divided in tension, anchor load and the suspended length two groups: permanent and mobile mooring lines. tension under the environmental effects. According to API [1] the analysis for a permanent The environmental effects can also be mooring line requires two types (see Fig. 1) of subdivided in three main categories: analysis, an extreme response analysis and a fatigue analysis, while for mobile mooring lines Steady state forces including current force, the analysis is made only in respect to extreme mean force, mean wind, and mean wave drift responses. forces. When the mooring lines for both types are Low frequency vessel motions due to wind assessed by means of extreme response analysis, it and waves accounts for vessel responses, mooring line Wave frequency vessel motions.

Figures 2: Components of mooring line, spring buoy, wire rope and studless chain The responses to mean forces are predicted by static catenary equations, and generally the low frequency vessel motions can also be assessed by the catenary equation. However, when the wave frequency vessel motions are accounted a different approach must be used. In general the wave frequency vessel motion can be achieved by two methods, the quasi static analysis and the dynamic analysis. The quasi static analysis In this approach the dynamic wave loads are taken into account by statically offsetting the vessel by approximately defined induced wave motions. Vertical fairlead motions and the dynamic effects associated with mass, damping and fluid acceleration are neglected. However, despite the practical application of this method, research has pointed out the reliability variation of this method depending of the vessel type, water depth and line configuration. Therefore, the quasi static method is not recommended for the final design of a permanent mooring but can be used for the preliminary study and temporary moorings with higher factors of safety. The dynamic analysis The dynamic analysis accounts for the time varying effects due to mass, damping, and fluid accelerations. The time varying of the fairlead motions are calculated from the vessel six degrees of freedom (DOF). Generally is sufficient to account only for the vertical and horizontal fairlead motions, in the plane of the mooring line. Dynamic analysis is used to predict mooring line responses to the fairlead motions. Several methods have been released with the main differences in the nonlinearities accounted in the modelling as: Nonlinear stretching behaviour of the line Changes in the geometry Fluid loading Bottom effects

To address the dynamic problem two methods have been used extensively, the frequency domain analysis and the time domain analysis to predict the dynamics of the mooring lines. In the time domain method, all the nonlinearities can be modeled, the elastic stretch is mathematical modeled, the full Morison equation is included, the position of the mooring line is updated at each time step, and the bottom interaction is include using a frictional model. The general analysis is implies the recalculations of each mass terms, damping term, stiffness term, and load at each time step. Hence the computation can become complex and time consuming. In the case of the frequency domain analysis, it does not include the nonlinear terms since the assumption of the linear superposition is used. Hence the nonlinearities must be eliminated either by direct linearization or by interactive

linearization. Detail description of the linearization procedures can be found in the API recommendation practice 2SK [1]. Method s to solve the quasi static and the dynamic analysis

[2]

[3] Numerical methods are plenty used to solve the mooring line problem and are applied for the solution of the mooring lien and the interaction of the mooring lines with the sea bed. Wang used finite differences to apply a quasi static method in three-dimensional problem; Lu also used the quasi-static method to analyze the dynamics in a tow-dimensional problem. In addition during the last years a large number of software have been released to solve the mooring line problems, an example of those are MIMOSA [5], ORCAFLEX [6] and ARIANE [7] all are used to analyze the mooring systems using static, quasi-static or full time domain analyses as appropriate or developed for the specific purposes The main differences are the method they use to solve the time domain, since the quasi static are applied considering the catenary equation, other numerical codes can be used also to solve the steady behaviour of the mooring line (see [5-7]). In the case of ORCAFLEX, it uses the lumped mass method to solve the mooring line problem in respect to dynamic analysis while in the case of software developed by [4] the university of Texas (See Prof Kin), they used the elastic rod beam theory to account for the tension, the nonlinearities related to the material properties, the bending moments and other nonlinearities; and finite element methods for the solution of the differential equations. This software is suitable for the analysis of the behaviour of synthetic wire ropes which are used a lot nowadays in offshore structures and recommended by [2] for the design of the mooring lines for wave energy converters.
REFERENCES

[4]

Stationkeeping Systems for Floating Structures, API Recommended Practice 2SK, 2nd Edition. Harris, R. E., Johanning, L., and Wolfram, J., (2004), Mooring Systems for Wave Energy Converters: A Review of Design Issues and Choices. 3rd International Conference on Marine Renewable Energy, MAREC 2004, 07-09.07.2004, Blyth, UK. ITTC, (1999), Final Report and Recommendations to the 22nd ITTC, the Specialist Committee on Deep Water Mooring, 22nd ITTC Proceedings, Seoul, Korea and Shanghai China 5-11 September. Tahar, A., Kim, M. H., (2008), Coupled dynamic analysis of floating structures with polyester mooring lines, Ocean engeneering 35 (208), 1676-1685,

Web pages

[5] http://www.sintef.no, accessed on 01, 06, 2011.

[6] http://www.orcina.com, accessed on 01, 06, 2011. [7] http://www.veristar.com, accessed on 01, 06, 2011.

[1] American

Petroleum Institute API, (1996), Recommended Practice for Design and Analysis of