Conference of Global Chinese Scholars on Hydrodynamics

HYDRODYNAMICS IN DEEPWATER TLP TENDON DESIGN

WANG Tao, ZOU Jun
Houston Offshore Engineering, 200 West Lake Park Blvd, Suite 1300, Houston, TX 77079, USA
E-mail : twang@houston-offshore.com

ABSTRACT: This paper introduces hydrodynamic aspects of

in-place TLP tendon design and analysis with emphases on TLP
hull/tendon/riser coupled dynamic analysis; tendon Mathieu
instability; tendon springing and ringing responses; tendon
bottom tension slacking due to wave overtopping; and tendon
vortex induced vibration (VIV).
KEY WORDS: TLP, hull/tendon/riser, coupled dynamic
analysis, Mathieu instability, springing and ringing, tension
slacking, wave overtopping, VIV

tendon transverse motions. It is meaningful for robust

design by checking Mathieus equation to ensure no
instability problems.
It is well known that both tendon springing and
tendon ringing are high-frequency tendon responses
due to high-frequency resonant motions. However,
ringing appears to be extremely bursting and transient
(Natvig, 1994). Extensive experimental studies and
H UL L P O NT O O N E X T E NS IO N

1. Introduction
TLP tendons are pre-tensioned slender members,
their tops are connected to the hull and bottoms are
moored to the seabed, as illustrated in Fig.1. In
deepwater, the TLP hull tends to interact more
pronouncedly to its tendons and risers in terms of
mass, stiffness and damping coupling. The TLP
hull/tendon/riser coupled dynamic analysis forms a
consistent analysis and design framework for
deepwater field development and application. A
traditional way of simulating the dynamics of a TLP is
to use an uncoupled method, which ignores all or part
of the coupling effects (mass, stiffness and damping)
between the TLP hull and tendons/risers. Ormberg and
Larsen (1998) found that the uncoupled analysis
produced severely inaccurate results, especially for
ultra deepwater application. Coupled time domain
analysis technologies (Paulling and Webster, 1986;
Kim et al., 1994; Ma et al., 2000; Zou, 2003) have
been established. Further developments and
validations have been reported by Zou (2003).
Mathieus equation was applied in the
investigation of the parametric responses excited by
the interactions of tendon tension variation and lateral
dynamics of tendons (Zhang et al., 2002). Mathieus
instability could be triggered at a certain model of
tendon lateral motion dependent on the magnitude of
fluctuation of the tendon tension and damping of

T O P C O N N E C TO R A S S Y

TEN D ON POR C H

L E N G T H A D JU S T M E N T JO I N T

LO A D M E A S U R E M E NT UN IT
3 2 O D T O 4 0 O D T R A N S ITIO N
T E N D O N P IP E

P IP E TO P IP E W E L D A R E A

4 0 O D T O 3 2 O D T R A N S IT IO N

T E N D O N P IP E
P IP E T O P IP E W E L D

D R IV E H E A D A N D G U I D E C O N E

E X TE N S IO N

T E ND O N B O T TO M RE C E P T A C L E

T E N D O N P IL E A N C H O R

Fig. 1 TLP tendon components

Biography: WANG Tao, Senior Naval Architect; ZOU Jun, Manager of Naval Architecture

numerical simulations (Zou and Kim, 1996; Zou, 1997;

386

Zou et al., 1998) have been undertaken to investigate

the tendon springing and ringing responses. The

results reveal that the springing is due to weak
asymmetric waves while the ringing is due to strong
asymmetric waves. As observed in the North Sea,
strong nonlinear waves in the irregular wave train do
create the ringing. Tendon springing responses have
significant impact on tendon fatigue while tendon
ringing responses have considerable impact on the
tendon extreme strength.
In 2005, two strong hurricanes, Katrina and Rita,
hit Gulf of Mexico (GOM), causing tremendous
damages and even capsizing one mini-TLP. It brought
great interest in the investigation of tendon bottom
tension slacking due to wave overtopping on the top
of column(s) and/or even on top of the deck. Prior to
hurricane Katrina and Rita, we had investigated the
wave overtopping effects on tendon dynamic responses on a three-column TLP. In 1998, physical wave
basin model tests were performed and numerical
simulations by model the model (Zou et al., 2003)
were completed and compared with the measured
results. The results indicated that the wave overtopping on top of column was the source to cause
tendon tension slacking.
It has been reported (Leverette et al., 2003) that
the excitation of VIV on tendons due to GOMs warm
core eddies and deep submerged jets (also called cold
eddies) can generate noticeable responses of the whole
TLP platform. Observations of these excitations due to
VIV are typically very high-frequency responses,
higher than those of heave, roll/pitch natural frequencies. This might imply the hull structural and/or
deck structural modes have been excited by tendon
VIV. The impacts of tendon VIV are 1) reducing
tendon fatigue life, 2) inducing excessive operating
downtime, 3) affecting operating personnel comforts,
4) creating hull and deck structural high-frequency
fatigue.
The outline of this paper is as follows. First, the
hull/tendon/riser coupled dynamic analysis was briefly
introduced. Second, the progress of tendon Mathieus
instability was reviewed. Third, tendon springing and
ringing were discussed. Fourth, tendon bottom tension
slacking due to wave overtopping was highlighted.
Fifth, tendon VIV effects were presented. Finally,
conclusions were draw.
2. TLP Coupled Dynamic Analysis
A six-DOF coupled dynamic equation of motion is
expressed as follows

{}

{}

 + [C] U
 + [K ]{U} = {F}+ {F }
[M ] U
m

(1)

where
[M] = mass and inertia matrix (6x6), hull structural
mass and inertia + hull added mass and inertia + mass

and added mass of slender members,

[C] = damping matrix (6x6), potential damping +
viscous damping + wave drift damping on hull +
damping of slender members,
[K] = stiffness matrix (6x6), hull hydrostatic stiffness
(heave and roll/pitch) + stiffness due to tendons and
risers,
{F} = load vector (6x1) of first- & second-order wave
loads + viscous loads + wind loads, and/or other
applied loads,
{Fm } = load vector (6x1) of tendon and riser tensions
at the connected locations,
{U } = unknown motion vector (6x1) in the sequence
of surge, sway, heave, roll, pitch and yaw, respectively.

6-DOF
Motion Solver

Line Dynamic
Solver
(Tendon and Riser)

Motion Etc.
Tensions, Reaction Loads Etc.

Fig. 2 Coupling process chart

TLP hull/tendon/riser coupling process chart is illustrated in Fig. 2. The TLP force model is introduced as
a nodal load component in a finite element (FE) model
of tendons and risers. Among TLP hull and tendons or
risers, forces are exchanged back and forth. It should
be noted that this approach yields dynamic equilibrium between the forces acting on the TLP and
tendons and/or risers at every time instant.
3. Tendon Mathieus Instability
Zhang et al. (2002) investigated TLP tendon
Mathieus instability under parametric excitation.
After substituting boundary conditions and including
hydrodynamic damping, a beam equation (tendon
model) had been recast into a general Mathieus equation form as follows:
d2 f
df
+c
+ (a + b cos z ) f = 0
2
dz
dz

(2)

where
(n l )[ EI (n l ) 3 + T0 (n l ) + w]
, n is the tendon
a=
ml 2
mode, l denotes the tendon length, ml stands for the
effective tendon mass per unit length, T0 represents
tendon effective tension, and w means tendon under
water weight per unit length. ml = Dh s + 0.25D 2 w ,
h is tendon wall thickness, s the density of steel.
387

 w the density of water, D the diameter of the tendon,

b=

T ( n l ) 2
ml 2

Table 2 Maximum allowable tension variation

, T is tension variation amplitude,

c= (4Cd w Du max ) (3m l ) , u max is maximum velocity

of tendon transverse motion, Cd is hydrodynamic drag
coefficient, z=t.
The general stability diagram with damping
effects as shown in Zhang et al. (2002) is adopted and
reproduced as Fig.3.

2.4

2.0

1.6

1.2
0% o f Critical Damping
0% o f Critical Damping
1% o f Critical Damping
1% o f Critical Damping
5% o f Critical Damping
5% o f Critical Damping
10% o f C ritical Damping
10% o f C ritical Damping

0.8

0.4

0%
1%
5%

Second
Unstable
Zone
495 KN
3617 KN
11400 KN

12000

Max Allowable Tension Variation (KN)

b (parameter in Mathieu's equation)

2.8

First
Unstable
Zone
0
2067 KN
6000 KN

First Unstable Zone

10000

Second Unstable Zone

8000

6000

4000

2000

0
0.0%

1.0%

2.0%

3.0%

4.0%

5.0%

Damping %

0.0
0.0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

1.2

1.4

1.6

1.8

2.0

a (parameter in Mathieu's equation)

Fig. 3 Stability diagram with and without damping

To demonstrate the importance of the damping

on suppressing Mathieus instability, a case study has
been followed and the TLP tendon parameter is given
in Table 1.
Table 1 Tendon parameters
Pretension (mt)
Tendon Diameter (O.D.) (m)
Tendon Wall Thickness (mm)
Tendon Length (m)
Tendon Wet Weight (mt)

885.6
0.6604
26.29
826.5
58.2

Maximum allowable tendon tension variations

around the first and second unstable zone with incident
wave peak periods of 7.25 and 14.5 second are
summarized in Table 2 and plotted in Fig. 4. a 0.25
and 1.0 are around the first and second unstable zones
in Fig. 3. It has been found that the Mathieu instability
will vanish fast with the presence of small damping in a
higher-order unstable zone. Thus no tendon mode n>1
is considered in this study.
From the Table 2, it has been noticed that
maximum allowable tendon tension variations are very
sensitive to the damping of tendon transverse motions.
If damping is 0, the maximum allowable tendon
tension variations for first and second unstable zone are
0 KN and 495 KN respectively for first and second
unstable zones; if damping is 1% critical damping,
maximum allowable tension variations dramatically
388

Fig. 4 Maximum allowable tension variation

increase to 2067 KN and 3617 KN respectively for

first and second unstable zones. In reality, the
damping of tendon transverse motions is much higher
than 1% of critical damping. Therefore tendon tension
variations should be well within the allowable ranges.
From Figs. 3 and 4, the higher-order regions of
instability are more sensitive by damping than
low-order ones. In Figs. 3 and 4, the higher-order
regions of instability are fading away faster than those
of the low-order ones by the same amount of damping.
Since the low-order resonance zones are very important, the limited damping effects on low-order
resonance zones may not be adequate to suppress
Mathieus instability. Thus, careful examinations and
assessments on the low-order resonance zones are
recommended.
Stability chart including damping effects has
been generated by assuming regular incident waves. It
still remains extremely challenging for developing a
Mathieu stability diagram with damping effects for the
irregular waves with the specified spectrum.
4. Tendon Springing and Ringing
Tendon springing and ringing phenomena are due
to the resonant pitching (rolling) and heaving motions
at high frequencies. Fig. 5 presents one segment of the
filtered high-frequency tendon tension time series. It
clearly presents the characteristics of the springing
and ringing, in which the springing is the highfrequency resonant tension response with the moderate amplitude while ringing is the transient and
energetic event just like the Bell being knocked and

vibrating strongly.

paper and complexity of the problem, only brief

descriptions are highlighted as follows:
Ringing

Springing

1.E+07

1.E+00

0.E+00
Log10(Probability Density)

Tension (N)

2.E+07

-1.E+07
-2.E+07
1140

1160

1180

1200

1220

1240

1260

1280

Time (s)

Fig. 5 Tendon springing and ringing

1.E-02

1.E-03

10

Extreme Tension/STDEV

Fig. 7 Probability distribution of ringing tension

The ringing (the North Sea) has considerable

impacts on extreme tendon strength. It is important to adequately account for the effects in the
design either by physical model tests or hybrid
method (minimum model tests + supplement
numerical simulations model the model).
The springing (the North Sea and Gulf of Mexico)
has significant impacts on tendon fatigue life.
Non-Gaussian effects should be treated properly.
The springing is due to weak asymmetric waves
while the ringing is due to strong asymmetric
front-concave waves as shown in Fig. 8.
70
60

1.E+00

Log10(Probability Density)

High Freq. Tension

1.E-04

Wave Elevation (ft)

No standard criteria has been officially agreed to

differentiate the springing and ringing yet. However,
parameters, such as extreme factor (extreme highfrequency tension / standard deviation high- frequency
tension) and Kurtosis are frequently utilized to describe the springing and ringing events. In general, the
springing is called if the extreme high-frequency
tension does not exceed five to six times of the
standard deviation and Kurtosis of the high-frequency
tension is less or equal to 5.0 (Davis et al., 1994)
while ringing is named if the extreme high-frequency
tension exceeds seven times of the standard deviation
and Kurtosis of the high-frequency tension is greater
than 5.0 (Jefferys and Rainey, 1994).
Figs. 6 and 7 illustrate typical probability distributions of springing and ringing events, and clearly
indicate that both springing and ringing events are
non-Gaussian distributions. It has been noticed that
maximum extreme factor in Fig. 6 is slightly less than
6 while the extreme factor in Fig. 7 is close to 10.0.

Gaussian Distribution
1.E-01

Gaussian Distribution
High Freq Tension
1.E-01

50

Measured

40
30
20
10
0
-10
-20
636

1.E-02

638

640

642

644

646

648

650

Time (s)
1.E-03
0

Fig.8 Measured strong asymmetric wave profile

Extreme Tension/STDEV

Fig. 6 Probability distribution of springing tension

The importance of investigating tendon springing and

ringing responses are lieu in two folds, one is to
quantify the impacts on extreme tendon strength and
fatigue life; the other is to find what kinds of waves
generate the springing and ringing and to develop
reliable method to simulate. Significant progresses
have been made during past 10 years (Davis et al.,
1994; Jefferys and Rainey, 1994; Zou, 1997; Zou1998;
Zou et al., 1999). Due to the limited length of the

To simulate strong asymmetric front-concave

waves in numerical wave tank is extremely
challenging in the near future. Therefore, it is
important to generate this type of wave train in
the wave basin for model tests. Zou et al. (2000)
had developed the methodology and successfully
generated strong asymmetric waves in random
sea way by employing both time and crest
distortions.

389

6. Tendon VIV
Millennium eddy currents hit the Gulf of Mexico
during the spring and summer of 2001. Since Millennium profile exceeded the existing design current
velocities at the depth, a few platforms experienced
strong tendon VIV and its impacts on operating.
Strong excessive VIV on tendon will reduce its fatigue
life, impact human comfortable level, and induce
ex- cessive operating downtime. Thus, broad
attentions have been draw and significant efforts have
been made to suppress VIV impacts by devices and to
develop reliable theory and tool to predict it.

390

440

4000

Simulated

400

3500

Measured
Measured Wave

360

3000

320

2500

280

2000

240

1500

200

1000

160

500

120

80

-500

40

-1000

-1500

Wave Elevation (ft)

4500

Tnedon Tension (kips)

5. Tendon Tension Slacking and Wave overtopping

Wave overtopping of the TLP column(s) and/or
deck is becoming a serious design issue, especially
after Hurricane Katrina and Rita and a mini-TLP
being capsized. Prior to Hurricane Katrina and Rita,
wave overtopping had brought our attentions when a
three-column TLP physical wave basin model tests
were performed in 1998 and tendon bottom tension
slacking were observed in some runs. Fig. 9 illustrated
the comparisons of the measured and simulated results
by the model the model method (Zou et al., 2004).
The wave overtopping on top of column was identified as the key factor to cause tendon tension
slacking.
Wave overtopping has been investigated in coastal
engineering for fixed structures for many years. Up to
date, it still remains extremely challenging to develop
robust model for accounting for layer thickness, overtopping velocities, cumulative overtopping volume
and mean overtopping rate. For floating platforms, it
adds complexity and difficulty for proper simulation
compared to fixed structures. Fig. 9 shows an example
of intending to reproduce the measured results. Similarly, only a few key elements involved are briefly
introduced as follows:
Well proven and validated coupled dynamic time
domain analysis program as base line.
Additional to the above, the program should have
the capability to model the model and account for
wave overtopping:
o Ability to de-composite the strong asymmetric wave as shown in Fig.9. Strong asymmetric is referred to both horizontal and vertical axis.
o Capability to reconstruct and reproduce the
measured strong asymmetric waves by the
limited frequencies.
o Validated weakly impact load model including weakly impact velocity and acceleration
in both horizontal and vertical plans due to
wave overtopping.

-40
520 540 560 580 600 620 640 660 680 700 720 740

Time (s)

Fig. 9 Simulated and measured tendon tension, and strong

asymmetric wave

As illustrated in Fig. 10, towing tests were carried

out at the well-known Offshore Technology Research
Center (OTRC) in 2004, with TLP hull, all tendons
and top tensioned risers (TTRs) attached without any
truncation in length. This was the first time in the
world to tow the entire platform in the wave basin.
The advantages of towing the entire model are as
follows:
It is the closest model to the prototype.
Account for the hull/tendon coupling effects.
Mean tension effects on different tendons due to
mean offsets are inherently built in.
The damping effects from hull and TTRs are also
inherently included.

Fig. 10 Underwater View of Towing Tests Setup

The prototype field is in 4,000 ft water depth.

Towing tests consist of towing model in still water and
in waves. The towing tests are intended to simulate
loop current conditions in a conservative and controllable way (uniform current from top to bottom,
speed up to 6.0 ft/s). The measured natural periods of
heave and roll/pitch are 3.75 s and 3.35 s / 3.38 s
respectively. The measured bending stiffness of
tendon model pipe and axial spring were employed in
the prediction. Tables 3 to 5 document the comparisons of natural periods of vibrations, Re and St
numbers of the prototype, ideal model and actual
model. It can be seen that both Re and St numbers are
very close between the ideal and actual models.
However, significantly differences are found w.r.t.

those of the prototype.

For low and high mean tendon tensions in 30
degree towing, possible modes being excited by tendon
VIV are shown in Tables 6 and 7, and the predicted and
measured tension RMS are compared in Tables 8 and 9.
In general, the predicted tension RMS are significantly
higher that those measured, which might be caused by
the difference between the predicted mean tensions and
the measured. It is also notice that good agreements
have been reached at speed 3 ft/s for both low and high
mean tensions and at speed 5 ft/s for high mean tension.
The measured data are filtered out low-frequency
components (period longer than 28.2 second) since
they are not due to tendon VIV based on Table 1 Actual
Model.

Current
(ft/s)
1
2
3
4
5
6

Prototype
(sec)
29.4
14.7
9.8
7.3
5.8
4.8
4.1
3.5
3.1
2.8
2.5
2.3
2.1
1.9

Ideal M odel
(sec)
29.4
14.7
9.8
7.3
5.8
4.8
4.1
3.5
3.1
2.8
2.5
2.3
2.1
1.9

Actual M odel
(sec)
28.2
12.7
7.4
4.8
3.3
2.4
1.8
1.4
1.2
1.0
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5

Table 4 Re number comparisons

Current (ft/s)
1
2
3
4
5
6

Prototype
2.02E+05
4.05E+05
6.07E+05
8.10E+05
1.01E+06
1.21E+06

Ideal Model Actual Model

3.05E+02
3.41E+02
6.11E+02
6.83E+02
9.16E+02
1.02E+03
1.22E+03
1.36E+03
1.53E+03
1.70E+03
1.83E+03
2.04E+03

Table 5 St number comparisons

Current (ft/s) Prototype
1
0.24
2
0.24
3
0.24
4
0.24
5
0.24
6
0.24

Ideal Model Actual Model

0.17
0.17
0.17
0.17
0.17
0.17
0.17
0.17
0.17
0.17
0.17
0.17

Table 6 Modes and periods of low mean tension tendon

Current
(ft/s)
1
2
3
4
5
6

Mean Top
Tension
(kips)
1849
1861
1967
2196
2515
2889

Mode

Period
(s)

2
3
3
4
5
5

13.42
7.76
7.64
4.85
3.31
3.22

Table 7 Modes and periods of high mean tension tendon

M ode

Period
(s)

2
3
3
4
4
5

13.36
7.66
7.43
4.68
4.44
3.03

Table 8 Comparisons of predicted and measured RMS

tensions of low mean tension tendon
Current
(ft/s)

Mode

1
2
3
4
5
6

2
3
3
4
5
5

Table 3 Natural periods of vibrations

M ode
Number
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

M ean Top
Tension
(kips)
1870
1946
2161
2532
3091
3740

Period RMSA/D Predicted

Measured
(s)
RMSTension RMSTension
(kips)
(kips)
13.42
0.89
18.2
6.5
7.76
0.86
37.9
17.8
7.64
0.92
43.5
38.6
4.85
0.96
83.7
43.9
3.31
0.96
131.4
88.9
3.22
1
140.6
122.3

Table 9 Comparisons of predicted and measured RMS

tensions of high mean tension tendon
Current
(ft/s)

Mode

Period
(s)

RMS A/D

1
2
3
4
5
6

2
3
3
4
4
5

13.36
7.66
7.43
4.68
4.44
3.03

0.88
0.96
0.87
0.98
0.9
0.97

Predicted
Measured
RMS Tension RMS Tension
(kips)
(kips)
17.9
5.7
47.6
18.3
38.6
42.2
87.3
43.5
74.2
86.3
132.9
114.6

In order to investigate the contributions from

different tendon modes, the high pass filtering
progresses to isolate each mode contribution have
been undertaken. Figs. 11(a) to 11g illustrate the high
pass filtered time series of the measured tendon
tension up to mode #7 per Table 3 Actual Model. In
this test, the towing speed is 5.0 ft/s (no wave and
wind). Fig. 11(a) denotes the first mode high pass
filtered time series excluding mean and low-frequency
components (cut-off period 28.2 s). However, it did
include all possible modes due to tendon VIV. Fig.
11(b) stands for second mode high pass filtered time
series, which excludes first mode contribution by
setting cut-off period 12.7 s. High pass filtering
processes were repeating up to tendon mode #7 as
shown in Fig. 11(g).
From Figs. 11(a) to 11(g), a few observations are
summarized as follows:
It is clear that multi-mode vibrations contribute to
the total tendon tension dynamics. In this case,
mode #2, #4 and #6 contribute more, especially
mode #2.
Mode numbers higher than 6 have virtually no
contribution.

391

Tension (kips)

200
100
0
-100
-200
50

70

90

110

130

150

Time (s)

Fig. 11(a)

First mode high pass tension time series

Tension (kips)

200
100
0
-100
-200
50

70

90

110

130

150

Time (s)

Fig. 11(b) Second mode high pass tension time series

Tension (kips)

200
100

7. Conclusions
This paper introduces hydrodynamic aspects of
in-place TLP tendon design and analysis with emphases on TLP hull/tendon/riser coupled dynamic
analysis; tendon Mathieu instability; tendon springing
and ringing responses; tendon bottom tension slacking
due to wave overtopping; and tendon vortex induced
vibration (VIV). The progress in these aspects has
been highlighted and discussed. Future works are also
recommended.

0
-100

References

-200
50

70

90

110

130

150

Time (s)

[1]

Fig. 11(c) Third mode high pass tension time series

[2]

200

Tension (kips)

excessive operating downtime and human comfort.

The maxi- mum towing speed 6.0 ft/s represents
uniform current profile, which is believed to be
conservative compared to typical GoM eddy current.
Further investigations are underway to explore why
and thus might result better platform design to
suppress tendon VIV impacts.

100
0

[3]

-100
-200
50

70

90

110

130

150

Time (s)

Fig. 11(d) Fourth mode high pass tension time series

[4]

Tension (kips)

200
100

[5]

0
-100
-200
50

70

90

110

130

150

[6]

Time (s)

Fig. 11(e) Fifth mode high pass tension time series

[7]

Tension (kips)

200
100
0

[8]

-100
-200
50

70

90

110

130

150

[9]

Time (s)

Fig. 11(f) Sixth mode high pass tension time series

Tension (kips)

200

[10]

100
0
-100
-200
50

70

90

110

130

150

Time (s)

[11]

Fig.11(g) Seventh mode high pass tension time Ssries

[12]

The platform behaves well. No platform response

was observed that would lead any concern for
392

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Jefferys, ER and Rainey, RCT (1994). Slender Body
Models of TLP and GBS Ringing, Proc Int Conf
Behavior Offshore Structures, Vol 2, pp587-605.
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