A decision support system for floating platform design

This paper describes a methodology developed for the preliminary design of floating production platforms. The preliminary design approach interlinks the mathematical design model with global optimization techniques. To illustrate the design procedure, the initial intermediate and final results are presented. They provide a clear understanding of the mathematical model and the decision support system. The preliminary design approach described here is based on the commercial software which is interfaced to what is called the FPS system and linked to a SEARCH package for design solutions. The paper summarizes the preliminary design approach, the mathematical model optimization and presents semisubmersible and TLP platform examples.     

Response-based method for determining the extreme behaviour of floating offshore platforms

The accurate prediction of extreme excursion and mooring force of floating offshore structures due to multi-variete environmental conditions which requires the joint probability analysis of environmental conditions for the worst case situation is still impractical as the processing of large amount of met-ocean data is required. On the other hand, the simplified multiple design criteria (e.g. the N-year wave with associated winds and currents) recommended by API known as traditional method does lead neither to the N-year platform response nor to the N-year mooring force. Therefore, in order to reduce the level of conservatism as well as uncertainties involved in the traditional method the response-based method can be used as a reliable alternative approach. In this paper this method is described. In order to perform the calculations faster using large databases of sea states, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) is designed and employed. In the paper the response-based method is applied to a 200,000 tdw FPSO and the results are discussed.     

Response mitigation on the offshore floating platform system with tuned liquid column damper

In this study a typical tension-leg type of floating platform incorporated with the tuned liquid column damper (TLCD) device is studied. The purpose is to find an effective and economic means to reduce the wave induced vibrations of the floating offshore platform system. The floating offshore platform has been widely applied for the offshore exploitation such as operation station, cross-strait bridges, floating breakwater and complex of the entertainment facilities. For offshore platform being employed as a public complex the stability and comfort to stay will be the major concern besides the safety requirement. Therefore, how to mitigate the vibration induced from waves and similar environmental loading becomes an important issue. The TLCD system utilizing the water sloshing power to reduce the vibration of the main structure, a newly developed device that could effectively reduce the vibrations for many kinds of structure is the first-time employed in the floating platform system. In both the analytical and experimental results it is found that the accurately tuned TLCD system could effectively reduce the dynamic response of the offshore platform system in terms of the vibration amplitude and the resonant frequency.     

法向承力锚(VLA)--一种适用于深海工程的新型系泊基础

深水系泊基础是深水系泊系统的重要组成,随着海洋油气资源开发的加速发展,深水系泊系统的关键技术成为国际海洋油气资源开发的重要研究领域.法向承力锚（VLA）是一种崭新的适用于深海油气资源开发的系泊基础形式,论文对其应用、性能特点、工作原理、安装与回收以及计算分析方法等进行了全面介绍,以期对科研人员进一步认识深水系泊系统的关键技术有所帮助,并对国内深水系泊系统的研发起到一定的借鉴作用.     

A robust damage detection method developed for offshore jacket platforms using modified artificial immune system algorithm

Steel jacket-type platforms are the common kind of the offshore structures and health monitoring is an important issue in their safety assessment.In the present study,a new damage detection method is adopted for this kind of structures and inspected experimentally by use of a laboratory model.The method is investigated for developing the robust damage detection technique which is less sensitive to both measurement and analytical model uncertainties.For this purpose,incorporation of the artificial immune system with weighted attributes(AISWA) method into finite element(FE) model updating is proposed and compared with other methods for exploring its effectiveness in damage identification.Based on mimicking immune recognition,noise simulation and attributes weighting,the method offers important advantages and has high success rates.Therefore,it is proposed as a suitable method for the detection of the failures in the large civil engineering structures with complicated structural geometry,such as the considered case study.     

Dynamic modeling and vibration suppression for an offshore wind turbine with a tuned mass damper in floating platform

The worldwide demand for renewable energy is increasing rapidly. Wind energy appears as a good solution to copy with the energy shortage situation. In recent years, offshore wind energy has become an attractive option due to the increasing development of the multitudinous offshore wind turbines. Because of the unstable vibration for the barge-type offshore wind turbine in various maritime conditions, an ameliorative method incorporating a tuned mass damper (TMD) in offshore wind turbine platform is proposed to demonstrate the improvement of the structural dynamic performance in this investigation. The Lagrange's equations are applied to establish a limited degree-of-freedom (DOF) mathematical model for the barge-type offshore wind turbine. The objective function is defined as the suppression rate of the standard deviation for the tower top deflection due to the fact that the tower top deflection is essential to the tower bottom fatigue loads, then frequency tuning method and genetic algorithm (GA) are employed respectively to obtain the globally optimum TMD design parameters using this objective function. Numerical simulations based on FAST have been carried out in typical load cases in order to evaluate the effect of the passive control system. The need to prevent the platform mass increasing obviously has become apparent due to the installation of a heavy TMD in the barge-type platform. In this case, partial ballast is substituted for the equal mass of the tuned mass damper, and then the vibration mitigation is simulated in five typical load cases. The results show that the passive control can improve the dynamic responses of the barge-type wind turbine by placing a TMD in the floating platform. Through replacing partial ballast with a uniform mass of the tuned mass damper, a significant reduction of the dynamic response is also observed in simulation results for the barge-type floating structure.     

Developing a robust SHM method for offshore jacket platform using model updating and fuzzy logic system

Structural monitoring is essential for ensuring the structural safety performance during the service life. The process is of paramount importance in case of the offshore jacket-type platforms due to the underwater structural parts subjected to the marine environmental conditions. This work is an experimental investigation on a laboratory model of a jacket platform with the objective of establishing a baseline finite element (FE) model for long-term structural health monitoring for this type of structures. A robust damage diagnosis system is also developed which is less sensitive to both the measurements and the modeling uncertainties. Experimental vibration tests are conducted on a physical platform model to obtain dynamic characteristics and then, the initial FE-model of the intact structure is developed to determine them numerically. Some differences between numerically and experimentally identified characteristics emerge due to various uncertainties in the FE-model and measured vibration data. To minimize these differences, initial FE-model is updated according to the experimental results. The updated FE-model is employed to predict the changes in the dynamic characteristics under variety of damage scenarios which are imposed by reducing the stiffness at the components of the model. Fuzzy logic system (FLS) and probabilistic analysis is developed for linguistic classification of damage and global damage diagnosis. Incorporation of the FLS fault isolation technique into FE-model updating method are proposed and evaluated for two different FLS methods to develop a vigorous damage diagnosis method. The efficiency of the technique is validated by different damage scenarios foreseen on the physical model. This technique is shown to be effective for diagnosing the presence of degradation and quantify it.