OTe 6889

TLP Global Motion Performance Analysis Procedures

B.J. Natvig, H.S. Vogel, and yvind Johnsen, Aker Engineering a.s

Copyright 1992, Offshore Technology Conference This paper was presented at the 24th Annual OTC in Houston, Texas, May 4-7. 1992. This paper was selected for presentation by the OTC Program Committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper. as pres~~ted. have not been revIewed by the Offshore Technology Conference and are sUbject to correction by the author(s). The material. as presented, does not necessarily reflect any posItIon of the Offshore Technology Conference or its officers. Permission to copy is restricted to an abstract of not more than 300 words. mustrations may not be copied. The abstract should contain conspicuous acknowledgment of where and by whom the paper is presented.

Abstract
The paper gives an overview of the analysis procedures involved in analyzing the global motion performance of tension leg platforms such as the Snorre and Heidrun platforms. The Aker Engineering TLP analysis system involves a suite of specially adapted purchased computer programs as well as inhouse developed programs. These programs are assembled into procedures for efficient and highly accurate analysis of all motion dependent parameters important for TLP design such as: Offset, set-down, air-gap etc. due to wave, wave drift and wind gust Riser and Tether extreme loads and fatigue life Temporary phases such as towing, station keeping and tether installation Structural analysis

aspects of the global motion performance, techniques only available in research institutions had to be transformed into practical design analysis tools for the first time. Presently, the Aker Engineering hydrodynamicists are engaged by Norwegian Contractors, which is another Aker Company, to assist in all major analysis wrt. the Heidrun Tension Leg Platform. Due to the deep draft of the Heidrun TLP. which will be the first concrete floating production platform ever to be constructed, the demand for even further refinements of the hydrodynamics analysis procedures has been pressing. This paper reviews some of the more important adaptations made to the procedures and it outlines how the suite of tightly connected computer programs performs all hydrodynamic and global motion performance analysis tasks required for the TLP hull, tethers and risers.

TLP ANALYSIS TOOLS

The following is a summary of the major components of the TLP motion performance analysis tools: SEAFLOATER First and second order linearized frequency domain analysis of TLP hulls. Developed by Aker Engineering. Radiation and Diffraction analysis of panel models. Developed by MIT, but with a number of additions made by Aker Engineering to facilitate linking with SEAFLOATER. Interactive graphics based panel modelling tool for WAMIT starting from SEAFLOATER space frame model. Also, SEA-WAM is vital for linking WAMIT and SEAFLOATER together. Developed by Aker Engineering. Linearized frequency domain analysis of risers and tethers.

The paper addresses the hybrid panel/space frame model where all radiation and diffraction effects are accounted for and superimposed on stochastically linearized viscous drag which is particularly important to achieve correct damping values for the important slowly varying effects of wave drift and wind gust. Sum-frequency excitations and its effect on tether fatigue life and extreme forces are also discussed. The implementation of coupled TLP/tether dynamic analysis is outlined.

WAMIT

SEA-WAM

INTRODUCTION
To the hydrodynamicist, the award of the Snorre TLP Main Engineering Contract represented one of the most challenging involvements that one could hope for in a life time. The compliancy of such a structure, the considerable dynamic amplification of all 6 degrees of freedom resonances as well as its

FREECOM

aritiaal dependency on the tethers meant that state-of-the-art

analysis techniques had to be stretched to the limit. For some

Developed by MeS, Ireland.

147

2
SEAPIPE

TLP Global Motion Performance Analysis Procedures

Large deflection full non-linear time domain analysis of risers, tethers and flexible hawsers. Developed by Aker Engineering. Frequency domain extreme value statistics of transfer function based response data. Slow and fast varying second order responses may also be accounted for. Developed by Aker Engineering. MUltipurpose non-linear time domain analysis of floating structures. May be used to analyze transient TLP motion behaviour, ego during tether installation. Developed by Aker Engineering.

OTC 6889

Alteration of member end dimension, ego conical transitions Insert bilge radii for box sections if required Number of panels for each circumferential ring Any closed member end face, ego column footing

SEASPECTRA

For circular cross sections or for box sections with bilge radii the panels will be placed such as to retain the cross sectional area of the SEAFLOATER input or modified cross section. At this stage of the modelling all commands are stored on a file in readably form which can be modified by the user. This means that one can alter previously input panel discretization fineness at any stage in this part of the modelling to get an overall balanced modelling with an acceptable number of panels. The modified command file can then be executed to the member where the raw modelling was terminated and the user will then continue in interactive mode. Having come to the end of the SEAFLOATER submerged hydrodynamic members the raw model is complete. During the next stage separate panels can be accessed by the mouse of the graphics terminal. To facilitate filling of gaps and removal of internal walls, panel corner coordinates can be shifted or panels can be removed. The panel model is complete when the structure is reasonably water tight and satisfies all geometrical requirements. Fortunately, WAMIT does not require that the panel model is absolutely water tight. This means that gaps occurring when there is a change of the number of panels around the column circumference over the column height or gaps occurring in the pontoon/column intersection will be of no practical consequence for the analysis results. Since the panelling is done on a member by member basis a table ofWAMIT panels versus SEAFLOATER members is generated by SEA-WAM in the process of the panel modelling. This is routed to a file together with member volumes, cross sectional area and end coordinates later to be accessed by WAMIT. The user will not modify this file unless for very special reasons.

SEABODIES

GEOMETRY MODELLING
All radiation and diffraction data is derived from a wetted surface discretization of the TLP hull, whilst the viscous drag is represented by projected areas in combination with drag coefficients according to the well known Morison equation. This means that the TLP hull has to be modelled by both a panel and a space frame model. All global motion analysis will, however, be performed on a space frame representation of the TLP hull. To achieve a transformation of panel based radiation and diffraction pressures to a space frame Morison type coefficient representation a table of panel numbers versus space frame members must be established. The interactive panel modelling tool, SEA-WAM, establishes such a table as well providing fast and accurate panel modelling. The procedure is outlined in the following two sections.

Space Frame Model

A space frame model is made up In SEAFLOATER using joint coordinates and member incidences. Each member to be associated with the hydrodynamic part of the model are described as either a cylinder or box cross section together with the required dimensions. Where members penetrate the cross section of other members load free ends are given, ie. a pontoon member, ending at a column circumference, is given the column radius as the load free end if the pontoon member is modelled to the centre of the column. To achieve a fine panel discretization near the free water surface fairly short member lengths should be used in this area, ie. gradually shorter member lengths the closer to the free surface. For each column, one member must intersect the free surface and its upper coordinate must be elevated high enough never to be submerged in any of the static offset conditions. If the hull contains one or two planes of symmetry the SEAFLOATER mirror image member modelling feature should be used since this will identify the necessary panelling effort. It should be noted that considerable time can be saved in both panel modelling and WAMIT run times if two planes of symmetry is adequate for an accurate representation of the TLP hull geometry. At this stage of the analysis only the submergence need be input in addition to the geometric representation of the wet hull. The tether model and environmental data can thus wait until the actual motion performance analysis will be performed.

RADIATION AND DIFFRACTION ANALYSIS

Applying the panel model, WAMIT is run to generate panel pressures due to radiation and diffraction effects. One additional feature to WAMIT, implemented within Aker Engineering is the ability to generate frequency dependent added mass and potential damping coefficients as well as frequency and heading dependent complex wave force coefficients on a Morison Equation type form for each of the SEAFLOATER members. This feature is made possible by the SEA-WAM generated table of WAMIT panels versus SEAFLOATER members which is accessed during the execution of the WAMIT module FORCE. One result of WAMIT/FORCE is a file containing member coefficients of added mass, potential damping and wave forces. Another file result is a moment correction file which accounts for member pressure forces which act eccentric to the space frame axis. The magnitude of this moment correction file is usually small, but it is included such that accuracy is not lost in transforming the panel based pressure data to the space frame representation. Both files are later accessed by SEAFLOATER. Since the slowly varying wave drift induced motion is of critical importance to the global motion performance, the wave drift coefficients are also computed by WAMIT. Further, wave crest enhancement factors, to account for loss of air gap due to wave interaction with the large diameter columns, are also computed by WAMIT for a number of specified coordinates sensitive to wave

Panel Model From Space Frame Model

The SEAFLOATER submerged geometry input data set is then accessed by SEA-WAM. Through a series of interactive commands a raw model is quickly established by taking each member in turn. Based on the SEAFLOATER cylinder and box member cross sections a number of parameters used for panelization of the hull is input: Number of sections along load carrying part of member

148

-=---;;o;o;,.-~
-~

GTC 6889

Natvig, Vogel and Johnsen

to restoring and due to increase In submergence. An iterative Newton-Raphson technique is used to find the mean offset and corresponding tether stiffness matrix which will serve as the datum offset for all dynamic analysis.

slamming. Both wave drift coefficients and wave crest enhancement factors are written to a file later to be accessed by SEAFLOATER. Further, the amplified wave particle kinematics between columns will affect riser excitation in the critical near surface region. The amplification factors are thus written to a file for, ego FREECOM analysis. WAMIT must be run for enough wave periods and headings such that linear interpolations between data points is valid. In practice, this will mean 20-30 wave periods where close period spacing should be aimed for in the important region of heave, pitch and roll resonances of say 2.5-3.5sec. A somewhat coarser period separation will be acceptable from this region to say 10-15sec. One should verify the adequacy of the period discretization by plotting since there might be considerable undulation of these results. A fairly wide wave period separation should normally be acceptable from this range and up to say 25sec. Finally, some high wave period of, say 100sec, should be included since added mass for the surge, sway and yaw resonances will be required for wave drift and wind gust analysis.

Direct Wave Action (First Order)

SEAFLOATER will first calculate the resonant periods by means of an eigenvalue analysis. Due to the frequency dependency of added mass this is first done for the added mass an arbitrary period of 15sec. The eigenvalue analysis is then repeated for each of the 6 degrees of freedom, each time for the added mass corresponding to the eigenvalue found from the first analysis. The wave spectrum is discretized into the specified number of frequency components. In addition, 21 frequency components are inserted around each of the resonant periods provided they are within the range 1.5-25sec. Member added mass, potential damping and wave force coefficients are extracted from the file generated by WAMIT and the necessary interpolations are done to get member coefficient values for each of the frequencies of the wave spectrum. Also, the wave force coefficients are interpolated wrt. heading if the SEAFLOATER heading differ from any of the WAMIT headings run. Based on these hydrodynamic coefficients the added mass and potential damping matrices and complex wave force vector are found for each of the frequencies of the sea state. It should be noted that these matrices and forces are calculated up to the true intersection with the still water level where static set-down, tidal variations and any effect of TLP heeling are accounted for. Ie. the effect on radiation and diffraction due to the submerged structure variations are thus accounted for by SEAFLOATER.

TLP DYNAMIC ANALYSIS

All 6 degrees of freedom rigid body motion response analysis is performed by SEAFLOATER. This means that the geometry model used during SEA-WAM panel modelling must be augmented by environmental data, weight and inertia data and tether stiffness data. The tethers are modeled as straight weightless lines where both axial and geometric stiffness are accounted for. Each individual line is modelled with exact termination coordinates, rather than grouping all tethers for each columns. The tether formulation is general and includes nonvertical and non-parallel tethers. Non-vertical tethers are important for static offset analysis whilst non-parallel tethers are important for tether mispositioning analysis. SEAFLOATER performs regUlar wave or stochastically linearized rigid body motion response of the TLP hull in the frequency domain. Due to the square relative velocity dependency of the viscous drag term in the Morison equation, equivalent linear representation of the viscous drag has to be derived before the equations of motion can be solved in the frequency domain. The method described by Krolikowski and Gay, which is used for this, has separate formulations for regUlar wave and stochastic sea state linearizations and for cases with and without current. In general, the stochastic linearization option is used since this encompass both first and second order effects and since extreme value response statistics are derived directly. However, to generate TLP motion data for tether and riser dynamics the regUlar wave option is often used. For both linearization options the solution of the equations of motion are done iteratively by inserting a weighted sum of the past results before solving for the next iteration cycle. The iterative procedure is terminated when following results differ by a very small amount. The response due to waves is separated into a first order contribution and two contributions to correct for non-linearities to second order. The two second order contributions correct for such effects as variable column wetting relative to mean sea level and the ve/ocit'; of the Bernoulli equation. This leads to a slow varying, difference frequency, and a fast varying, sum-frequency, correction term.

Wave Drift (2nd Order - Difference-Frequency)

The slowly varying wave drift forcing covers a wide frequency band. This means that the high period resonant degrees of freedom, ie. surge, sway and yaw, will be exited by the dynamic part of the wave drift. The magnitude of forcing is generally small, but the damping is generally low. For this reason, the wave drift induced motion is the most severe of all motion components. To get a high degree of accuracy where it matters most a large number of second order frequency components are selected around the three resonant periods. The computation of these resonant periods and the added mass to be associated with them is found from the eigenvalue analysis discussed above. A fairly coarse frequency separation is acceptable outside the resonant regions. Wave drift forcing in the period range from 30sec to 700sec is usually covered. As noted the wave drift coefficients are computed by WAMIT and stored on a file accessed by SEAFLOATER. When selecting wave periods for WAMIT analysis, care should be exercised such that wave drift coefficients are well represented in the undulating period range of, say, 3-1 Osee. Due to the slow velocity motion at these resonances the damping is only within a few percent of critical. Potential damping is Virtually zero in the high period range and the ve/ocitl of the viscous drag means that this component will be small, partiCUlarly if there is no current. Other small damping contributions could therefore be of importance and one such candidate effect is the wave drift damping. Wave drift damping results from the variation of wave drift force coefficients due to the TLP motion. Due to the slow motion, the practical way of computing wave drift damping coefficients is to compute wave drift forces for several current velocities. The gradient of wave drift forces wrt. current (or TLP) velocities corresponds thus to the wave drift damping coefficients. To obtain the sea state influence on the damping an integration

Non-linear Static Offset Analysis

For sea state analysis the static offset due to current, mean wave drift and mean wind are first found. The inverted pendulum action
"f th", t",th",.", .
"ffc",t _ . . . hnth ..I, ,n

over all frequency range, similar to the integration to obtain the

mean wave drift force, must be performed. For the Snorre TLP, 149

TLP Global Motion Performance wave drift damping coefficients where computed by prof, Faltinsen
of NTH/Trondheim. For the Heidrun TLP, the wave drift damping coefficients will be computed by a version of WAMIT developed at University of Oslo.

Analysis

Procedures
or deformation

OTC 6889
types. The idea is

ULS analysis requires that all loads are identified according to

permanent, live, environmental

Springing

Dynamics

(2nd Order - Sum-Frequency)

The other aspect of non-linear correction of wave forces to second order is often called springing since the earlier work was done on slender ship bending resonances. Due to its low period motion, springing may have a considerable impact on lowering tether fatigue life. To a lesser extent it will also increase extreme tether stress. Further, it is possible that the TLP acceleration caused by springing excitation could affect human comfort or the ability to perform certain acceleration dependent operations. With the assistance of dr. T Marthinsen of Saga Petroleum, prof. D K Yue of MIT and prof R Eatock-Taylor of Oxford University, what is believed to be the first engineering application of springing analysis of TLPs was implemented in SEAFLOATER. This was done by introducing Quadratic Force Transfer Function to SEAFLOATER, either as single columns or for the complete TLP where all interaction effects were accounted for. As for the slowly varying excitations, damping is also of critical importance. An exhaustive search of damping contributions for the Snorre project yielded contributions from soil, tether material, hull structure as well as the various hydrodynamic contributions, The fast varying effects of first order wave and springing are contained in the same viscous drag iterative solution. This means that each response is somewhat dependent on the presence of the other as the magnitude of damping is affected by the total response,

that certain overload factors shall be applied to each load category in term and its effect on the response shall be noted. By over loading the structure one will identify the effect of non-linearities on the response so that one will get a good description of the safety margins, For a TLP an environmental load factor of E= 1.3 will typically yield a static offset increase of 1.27 due to tether non-linearities and a similar smaller increase in dynamic offset due to the higher damping associated with the higher motion. For such results it is demonstrated that the non-linearities of the system behaves in a safety conserving manner and full credit for this inherent safety can thus be taken. For frequency domain analysis one can easily adopt ULS loading factors provided one has access to the computer source code. For SEAFLOATER, all motion induced forces and wave forces are calculated using nominal coefficient values. The viscous drag is separated into a damping part, a wave excitation part and a static current force part. All excitation forces are the assembled on the right hand side of the equations of motion and multiplied by the pertinent loading factor, eg. E=f.3. Any non-linearities in the static analysis and the effect of non-linear drag on the dynamic analysis will thus be accounted for during the iterative solution of the equations of motion.

Combined

Extremes

due to all Motion Components

Wind Gust Dynamics

Wind gust forcing is slowly varying and it affect the motion in much the same way as the wave drift forcing. Its effect on the motion response is less than of the wave drift. The Heidrun TLP is more subjected to wind gust forcing than the Snorre TLP due to the higher projected area. The accurate prediction of wind induced motion suffers from difficulties in prediction of full scale wind forces, gust intensities, wind spectral formulations and the effect of wind coherence. In the past point wind spectra due to Harris and Davenpoti has been used. These spectra are derived from measurements over land, but they are now believed to overpredict wind gusting over sea due to differences in surface friction, Spectra proposed by BMTj from measurements at the West Sole platform, and the AP/ RP2A spectrum are often used at present, The trend for future North Sea applications, however, seems to be spectra derived from an extensive measurement programme at the shore of the island of Fruya near Trondheim in Norway. The wind gust response is computed within the same iterative cycle as the wave drift response and the linearization of the viscous drag contains the effect of both excitation components. This means that the wave drift damping affect wind induced response in the same way as the aerodynamic damping affects the wave drift response,

At the static offset position spectral response areas, mean periods etc. are found for direct wave response, wave drift response, springing response and wind gust response. Response in this context denotes any of the 6 degrees of freedom responses or any quantity which can be derived from a linear combination of any of them, eg, the motion at given coordinates, air gap, axial tether force etc. It is generally assumed that the extreme response due to direct wave action follows the Rayleigh distribution. The response due to wave drift is somewhere between the Rayleigh and Exponential distributions, depending on the amount of damping. It is generally assumed that there is a small amount of correlation between direct wave and wave drift response. Springing and wind induced response maxima are assumed to be Rayleigh distributed, but it is not understood if this is fully verified. From a horizontal offset point of view the distribution for wave drift response and the way it correlates with the direct wave response is of greatest significance to the total results, Both prof A Naz?ss at NTH/Trondheim and C T Standsberg at MarinteWllondheim has studied this problem. From theoretical considerations and from analysis of model tests horizontal motion time series, algorithms for combining these components into total maxima including static offset has been derived.

Air Gap Analysis

Air gap involves the vertical motion of a series of coordinates under the lower deck. The loss of air gap relative to the still water clearance result from set-down due to static and dynamic horizontal motion, wave crest with corrections for interaction effects with TLP columns and wave asymmetry, The frequency and wave heading dependent wave crest interaction factors are found from WAMIT, SEAFLOATER reads these factors directly from a separate file. The wave asymmeby factor normally used is .56 which is only applied to the undisturbed wave elevation profile.

TLP MOTION PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS Ultimate Limit State Load Factors

Norwegian Petroleum Directorate requires that an U/timate Limit State analysis is conducted. Whilst ULS checks are strictly limited to structural resistance against failure it is understood that the same kind of check should be made for all global performance checks,

Motion Data for Tether and Riser Analysis

Riser and tether dynamics are, to a large extent, controlled by the top motion imposed by the TLP. This imposed motion is given as transfer functions of direct wave response for the relevant attachment coordinates resolved perpendicular to the unreflected static offset position of the rker/tether. They are written to a file for FRECOM analysis. For linearized tether analysis, transfer 150

OTC 6889

Natvig, Vogel and Johnsen

but wave particle amplification due to column for. This correction is done using a file generated by WAMIT,
interactions must be corrected

functions of axial stresses are written to the same file.

compensators,

Tether Mispositioning
In positioning the foundation templates for tether bottom attachments, great care is exercised, Due to the high structural stiffness of the hull and tethers any tether offset relative to all tether being parallel will cause differential tether elongations during the large horizontal TLP excursions. Such differential elongations
can cause a significant increase in the extreme tether stresses

FLEXIBLE

HAWSER

ANALYSIS

and a reduction in the tension margin against slack, To quickly analyze the many possible tether mispositioning possibilities in combination with all critical sea states a special procedure has been implemented in SEAFLOATER. This procedure involves a
mispositioning file input to SEAFLOATER where a large number of offset coordinates, relative to the target coordinates specified on

Flexible hawser dynamics behaves highly non-linear and time domain analysis must be conducted. SEAPIPE will do this in 3dimensions using a novel method for accounting for the large change of geometry with time, The imposed motion at the TLP end of flexible hawsers is extracted from SEAFLOATER,

TLP TEMPORARY

CONDITIONS

A number of conditions must be analyzed during temporary conditions prior to the fully tethered installed condition. A general problem with these conditions is that they are mi/d weather

basic input file, for each group of tethers are described. Rotations of each foundation template, ie, Wisting of tether groups, may also be specified. For each sea state the target tether bottom position is first run and then for each of the mispositioning cases. Subtracting total tether forces for each mispositioning case from the target tether position case, the incremental axial force resulting foundation mispositioning are found, from the tether

conditions, which means that they are very sensitive to wave drift and wind gust whilst direct wave is of minor importance. As noted, wave drift and wind gust analysis suffer from considerable uncertainties particularly on the damping side.

Offshore

Towing

and Station

Keeping

Analysis

TETHER

DYNAMICS

AND FATIGUE

FREECOM is used for all linearized frequency domain analysis of transverse tether dynamics. The TLP induced motion at the tether tops are combined with direct wave loads on the tethers to give the total transverse response. A stochastic linearization is normally conducted and the frequencies are selected independent of those used in SEAFLOATER such as to give accurate responses in the areas of transverse tether resonance, Having obtained the bending stress transfer functions from FREECOM these are combined with the axial tether stress transfer functions from SEAFLOATER to form the combined normal stress transfer functions. The different frequency scales of the two sets of transfer functions are converted into a common scale by means of linear interpolation. From these transfer functions short and long term extreme stresses and fatigue life are calculated by SEAS PECTRA. The tether top and bottom flex angles are found from statistics of top and bottom angular transfer functions. The tether end rotations are caused by tether transverse dynamics as well as the TLP motion itself.

The action of the towing lines during the offshore towing to the installation site must be accounted. Heeling angle analysis, including all wave and wind effects, are useful to complement the statutov static wind heelina and stabilitv analvsis. On having arrived at the TLP installation site the TLP has to be manoeuvred into to the precise location and kept there during tether installation. This may involve a change in the metacentric height, different environmental conditions, a mooring system and different action points for the tugs. Since the safe tether installation is dependent on acceptable TLP motion the analysis of this operation must be made with great care.

Tether Installation

Transient

Analysis

The tethers will be installed with the TLP in a free floating mode under the horizontal restraint of a station keeping system. No unified system of installing the tethers has so far been adopted, but they all rely on a transient phase between the free floating to the fully tethered mode. To establish the impact type effect on tether stressing due to the transient dynamic transition between the two steady state phases a time domain analysis must be performed. The program SEABODIES has been used for this where the mobilisation of individual tethers during the passage of time, and thus the updated stiffness, are accounted for. By running a series of sea states in SEABODIES one can identify what sea and wind conditions will be acceptable for installing the tethers.

Tether Springing

Fatigue

From the SEAFLOATER rigid body TLP springing analysis, axial tether standard deviations of stresses normalized by the significant wave heights are read by SEASPECTRA as a function of mean wave period and heading. It was found during the Snorre project that this normalization of the springing response was reasonable which was of considerable practical importance for reducing the computational effort. From each of the cells of the wave scatter diagram the corresponding contribution to tether fatigue is obtained. The question was raised as to how direct wave fatigue should be combined with springing fatigue to find the resulting fatigue life. The method which was finally chosen was verified against Rain F/ow Cyc/e Counting, Its effect is to considerably increase fatigue damage, and thus reduce fatigue life, compared to a direct summation of fatigue damage due to first order and springing.

STRUCTURAL

ANALYSIS

Another advantage of transforming the WAMIT radiation and Cfiffh3CtiOII information onto a space frame member level is that all wave and motion induced forces can be transferred to a structural space frame analysis model, FASTRUDL is normally used for all structural analysis. The required loads are generated by SEAFLOATER. FASTRUDL may thus compute stress transfer functions which can be used by SEASPECTRA to compute extreme stresses and fatigue life,

COUPLED

TLP HULL AND TETHER

ANALYSIS

RISER DYNAMICS

AND FATIGUE

Riser extreme stresses and fatigue is carried out in much the

It was mentioned that TLP motion is done for the 6 rigid body degrees of freedom where the tethers are modelled as elastic, straight, weightless lines including geometric stiffness, ie, the inverted pendulum effect. It is generally assumed that the effect of tether bending on modifying the TLP motion is negligible. A number of comparisons against model test suggest that this assumption is valid. However, for deeper water, where tether mass becomes a sizable 151

same way as Ior Ihe !e(hers. INally transmitted forces from TLP
motion are partly suppressed by the presence of motion

TLP Global Motion Performance

part of the TLP mass this assumption may no longer be valid. Integrated TLP and tether dynamic analysis has therefore been proposed by several researcher, The authors of this paper have suggested a simple and computationally non-intensive method, which should work when tether coupling on TLP motion is weak, The suggested method is a refinement of the present decoupled method and will involve running the SEAFLOATER motion analysis in one more step. On
having performed FREECOM tether dynamics, transfer functions and phase angles of the rotation relative to the straight tether at the top attachment will be extracted. Due to small rotations, this angle in radians multiplied with the mean tension will represent the effect of tether dynamics on the TLP at the attachment points. By introducing these tether top rotational transfer functions to SEAFLOATER during a second analysis and by making the required force and moment corrections, the effect of tether dynamics on TLP motion should be fairly accurately accounted for.

Analysis

Procedures

OTC 6889
Excitations in TLP

Natvig, B J and Vogel, H: Sum-Frequency Design, ISOPE, Edinburgh, 1991

WIIIS, J A B and Cole, L R: The Aerodynamic Response of Comp/iant Platforms in Waves, British Maritime Technology, 1988 AP/ RP2A American Practice 2A Petroleum Institute, Recommended

NPf2 Norwgian Petroleum Directorate, Acts, Regulations and Provisions for Petroleum Activity, Volume 2 FREECOM User Manual, Marine Computational Galway, Ireland Services,

WAMIT User Manual, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA Marthinsen, T Hydrodynamics in TLP Design, 8 OMAE, The

REFERENCES
Natvig, B J and Almeland, I B Structural Integrity Verrl%at/on of the First Aker H-4.2, 5* OMAE, Tokyo, 1986
Vogel, H and Natvig, B J: Dynamics of Flexible Hawser Riser Systems, 5h OMAE, Tokyo, 1986

Hague,

1989

LappegArd, O T, Petersen, D J, Gaul T R, Almeland, I B and Vogel, H: Snorre TLP Configuration and Analysis Technology, OTC, 1991 Nzess, A Effects of Correlation on Extreme Slow Drift Response, 8WOMAE, The Hague, 1989 Larsen, K and Standsberg C T Extreme Motions of Tension Leg Platforms, No. 511159, Marintek, Trondheim, 1989

Krolikowski, L P and Gay, T P: An /reproved Linearization Technique for Frequency Domain Riser Analysis, OTC, Houston, 1980

SEAFLOATER
Box/Cylinder Space Frame Model

SEA-WAM
Removal of Internal Walls at Intermediate Modelling Stage

WAMIT
Completed Panel Model

Fig, 1

Interactive

Graphics

Based Modelling

Procedure

152

OTC ------- 6889

Natvig, Vogel and Johnsen

SEA-WAM > PanelModellingfrom SpaoeFrame Model * WAMIT FfadlatlorWf@~On ~a!
Added Mass, Potential Damping and Wave Coefficients. Mean Wave Drift Forces. Wave Crest Amptifcetlon. t / SEAFLOATER Intermediate Tether Model Envlronnv3tSl Data Motion at given Coordinates Results and Stochastic Lfnesrkaflon Axial Tether Stress

Regular Wave

Motion at Cerrfre of Gravity

MotIon at Tether/Riser Attachment

coordinates

{ 1 \

t SEAFLOATER Short Term Stefistloa

Horizontef Motion Extremes Minimum AJr Gap MaxfMin Tether Extremes Force

/ 1 FREECOM
Tetfwr ,%mlyeis

Tether Eending Analyels Combine with Axial Stress Transfer Funstions Extreme Extreme Normsf Stresses Ffex Angles I i

Extreme Nwrswd Stresses Estreme Ffex Angfes Riser/Pontoon Cteerance

Non-linear Time Domslrr Analysis of flexible Hawsers May elso be preformed on Risers and Tethers

SEASPECTRA Short Crestad Sea

SEASPECTRA Short Crested Sea Long Term SteffsUoal Motion Estremes + 4 ml

SEASPECTRA Short Crested sea Long Term Stetistlcal Stress Extremes Tether Fatigue Life

Long Term Statlstlsal Stress Extremes Tether Fatigue Life

Fig, 2

TLP

Global

Motion Performance

Anaiysis

Fiow Chart

Significant
20 1s 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 a 10 12 14

Height

ta

I e.4

21

Peak Wave Period

Horizontal

Offset Components

10

12

14

16

1a4

21

Peak Wave Period Fig, 3

Reiative

importance

of the Various

Offset Contributions

asFunction of SeaStates
153