Experimental Study on Wet Tow and Upending of a Truss Spar

In recent years, with the development of the deepwater oil and gas exploitation, the Spar platform has received more and more attention. A lot of research work has been done on the Spar platform, but experimental study on the process of wet tow and upending of Truss Spar is seldom conducted. Recently, a wet tow and upending model test of a Truss Spar was carried out in the State Key Laboratory of Ocean Engineering in Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The hydrodynamic characteristics and the global loads on the key points of the Truss Spar during the period of wet tow and upending are focused on. In the wet tow tests, the tow resistance, 6DOF motions, global loads and the relative wave elevations are measured and analyzed. During the upending simulation, the measuring parameters consist of the motions and the global moment at the connection points between the hard tank and the truss. The test program and test results are presented and discussed in this paper offering the value references for the wet tow and upending operation in reality of the Truss Spar.