Methods for Reducing a Large Number of Current Profiles to a Small Subset for Riser VIV Analysis

The paper presents two different approaches to construct subsets of current profiles from a large set of long term current profiles for the purpose of performing calculations for riser fatigue damage from vortex induced vibrations (VIV). The subsets are intended to reproduce the fatigue damage from the full set of current profiles. In the first approach, the full set of profiles is first sorted into bins based on current magnitude, direction and shear in the profile. The profiles within each bin are then reduced to a single constructed profile through one of many possible current averaging schemes. The present study includes two types of constructed profiles; one profile is generated by the average value of the currents for each bin and the other by the average value plus one standard deviation. The second approach is based on first performing a simplified and computationally efficient VIV analysis of the full set of profiles. The profiles are then sorted into bins by the dominant excitation mode, and then a single profile is chosen to represent all the profiles that excite the mode of interest. The chosen profile for the mode of interest has VIV power-in which is close to the average power-in for all the profiles that excite the mode. The number of profiles in the subset is equal to the number of modes that are excited by the full set of profiles. The VIV power-in in this paper is estimated through a simplified procedure that is consistent with the SHEAR7 methodology. Other available codes can also be used for the simplified VIV calculations.