Nonlinear Response of Coupled Integrated Spar Platform Under Severe Sea States

The oil and gas industry has moved towards the offshore deep water regions due to depletion of these resources in shallow and intermediate water depths. Conventional fixed jacket type platforms and bottom supported compliant platforms have been found to be inefficient and uneconomical for exploring these resources in deep water regions. In view of deep water conditions, Spar platforms have been seen to be the most economical and suitable alternative offshore platforms. Several operational Spar platforms such as SB-1, Shell’s ESSCO, Brent Spar, Oryx Neptune Spar, Chevron Genesis Spar and Exxon’s Diana Spar in the Gulf of Mexico and North Sea have shown the effectiveness and success of such platforms in deep-ocean. In deep water conditions, the severity of sea states has substantial effects on the spar platform. The mooring lines contribute significant inertia and damping because of their longer lengths, larger sizes, and heavier weights. Precise motion investigation of platforms should consider these actions in deep waters. However, proper dynamics cannot be assessed by the commonly used decoupled quasi-static method that ignores all or part of the interaction effects between the mooring lines and platform. Coupled analysis, which includes the platform and mooring lines in a single model, is the only way to capture the damping from mooring lines in a consistent manner. In the present study, coupled analysis of integrated Spar-mooring system has been performed. Cylindrical spar hull is treated as a rigid beam element and catenary mooring line as hybrid beam element. Nonlinear dynamic responses have been evaluated under several severe sea states of dissimilar wave heights and wave periods. Damping due to mooring lines has been assessed. An automatic Newmark-β time incremental approach has been implemented to conduct the analysis in time domain. Wave induced spar hull motion in surge, heave and pitch direction along with maximum tension in mooring line has been assessed for different wave conditions with and without current in 1018 m water depth. The time histories of spar responses follow substantial alteration for larger wave heights and wave periods. Maximum tensions in mooring line are very sensitive with momentous value for extreme sea loading. Mooring tension responses are significantly different reflecting the damping effect of mooring lines.