Dynamic Coupling Between Top-End Vessel Sway and Slender Riser VIV in Deep Water

The impacts of top-end motion on the riser undergoing vortex-induced vibration (VIV) are explored in this study, because the dynamic coupling between moving top-end vessel and submarine riser becomes more remarkable for a floating platform in deeper water due to the larger top-end motion amplitude, compared with the fixed platform in shallow water. A coupled hydrodynamic force approach, involving the vortex-induced lift force along with the fluid drag force, is developed. The dynamic responses of the system including a floating top-end and a riser experiencing VIV are examined by means of finite element simulations. The effects of amplitude and frequency of top-end vessel sway on riser VIV are examined. Our numerical results show that the riser displacement becomes several times larger than the displacement for the case without top-end motion. Moreover, the nonlinear response amplification is observed, and the nonlinear amplification gets more pronounced as the number of mode order dropping, while the amplification factor just slightly changes with the increase of sway amplitude.