Proceedings of the XXVII Iberian Latin-American Congress on Computational Methods in Engineering CILAMCE 2006 Brazilian Assoc. for Comp.

. Mechanics (ABMEC) & Latin American Assoc. of Comp. Methods in Engineering (AMC), Belm, Par, Brazil, 3trd 6th September 2006

Paper CIL 01-526

A GENERALIZED CONTACT MODEL FOR THE SIMULATION OF COMPLEX OFFSHORE OPERATIONS Danilo Machado Lawinscky da Silva Fabrcio Nogueira Corra Breno Pinheiro Jacob danilo@lamcso.coppe.ufrj.br fabricio@lamcso.coppe.ufrj.br breno@lamcso.coppe.ufrj.br LAMCSO Laboratory of Computer Methods and Offshore Systems PEC / COPPE / UFRJ Graduate Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Civil Engineering Department Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil Abstract. Deepwater offshore oil exploitation activities have been requiring the use of a sophisticated computational tool to predict the behavior of floating offshore systems under the action of environmental loads. Nowadays, it has been recognized that such tool should be able to perform coupled dynamic analysis, considering the non-linear interaction of the hydrodynamic behaviour of the platform with the structural/hydrodynamic behaviour of the mooring lines and risers. In this approach, the structural behaviour of the lines is represented by Finite Element models. Traditionally, the implementation of the analysis tools considers the coupling of the equations of motion of the FEM model with the 6-DOF equations of motion of the platform hull. However, this approach has a crucial limitation for model some offshore operations (especially installation operations), it does not rigorously consider the contact between the lines and the hull and other volumes of the platform. Therefore, the objective of this work is to present a tool that improve the coupled analysis model described above and make it capable to model complex offshore operations. Such tool represents, during the dynamic analysis, the contact of lines and the platform, as well as the contact involving different lines and, eventually, involving two different platforms in the same model. Traditional contact models consider for instance a generalized scalar element, consisting of two nodes linked by a non-linear gap spring. In this work, the contact model is geometrically defined by volumes that cannot interpenetrate. A penetration stiffness can be defined for each volume; lateral friction can also be considered by this model. An appropriate data structure is used to define the volumes and guarantee the efficiency of the algorithm by an optimized search. The application of the presented contact model is demonstrated by case studies of actual applications for offshore systems. An offloading floating hose is modeled and analyzed in some operation situations. First, the floating hose is submitted to the reeling operation. After that, the floating hose is dynamically analyzed in its operation position. In this situation the hose may collide with the hull of the ship. Keywords: numerical methods, contact model, offshore operations. 1. INTRODUCTION

Deepwater offshore oil exploitation activities have been requiring the use of sophisticated computational tools to predict the behavior of floating offshore systems under the action of environmental loads. It has already been recognized that the traditional uncoupled analysis

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methodology, where mooring lines and risers are represented by simplified scalar models, lead to simplifications that may severely affect the results, mainly for new concepts that are recently being considered for deep water applications in Campos Basin. Therefore, the computational tools should be able to perform coupled dynamic analyses, considering the non-linear interaction of the hydrodynamic behavior of the platform with the structural/hydrodynamic behavior of the mooring lines and risers, represented by Finite Element models. Several studies have been performed regarding the use of coupled analysis tools for the design of deep and ultra-deep water systems, including also hybrid methodologies that combine coupled and uncoupled models (Corra, 2003; Senra, 2004). The implementation of such analysis tools considers the coupling of the equations of motion of the FEM model of the lines with the 6-DOF equations of motion of the platform hull, but may not rigorously consider the contact between the lines and the hull and other volumes of the platform Therefore, the objective of this work is to present a tool that improve the coupled analysis model described above and make it more realistic. Such tool represents, during the dynamic analysis, the contact of lines and the platform, as well as the contact involving different lines and, eventually, involving two different platforms in the same model. The use of a sophisticated computational tool becomes mandatory not only for the design of production platforms, but also for the simulation of several offshore installation operations. For instance, in the installation of submarine pipelines, the wall thickness design may not be governed by the pressure containment requirements of the pipeline during the operation, but by the installation process, specifically the combined action of bending, tension and hydrostatic pressure acting on the pipeline, that is also submitted to the motions of the laybarge. Therefore, to predict the behavior of such offshore operations it is very important to use a computational tool that not only considers the coupling of the pipeline with the motions of the barge, but also that rigorously consider the contact between the pipeline and its supports (laybarge, stinger, seabed). Traditional contact models consider for instance a generalized scalar element, consisting of two nodes linked by a non-linear gap spring. In this work, the contact model is geometrically defined by volumes that cannot interpenetrate. A penetration stiffness can be defined for each volume; lateral friction can also be considered by this model. The first stage in a contact algorithm consists in checking if the boundary surface was crossed. A contact algorithm works by monitoring the position of nodes along a section of the line (mooring lines, risers or pipelines) and comparing these to the instantaneous location of contact surfaces at each solution iteration. Some aspects of computational geometry are used, as well as an appropriate data structure is used to define the volumes (bounded by the contact surfaces) and guarantee the efficiency of the algorithm by an optimized search. 2. FUNDAMENTALS OF COMPUTATIONAL GEOMETRY

Broadly speaking, computational geometry is the study of algorithms for solving geometric problems on a computer. Much of computational geometry performs its computations on geometrical objects known as polygons. A polygon is a region of a plane bounded by a finite collection of lines segments forming a simple closed curve. Polygons are a convenient representation for many real-world objects; convenient both in that an abstract polygon is often an accurate model of real objects and in that it is easily manipulated computationally. A polyhedra is the natural generalization of a two-dimensional polygon to three dimensions: it is a region of space whose boundary is composed of a finite number of flat polygonal faces, any pair of which are either disjoint or meet at edges and vertices.

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The boundary or surface of a polyhedron is composed of three types of geometric objects: zero-dimensional vertices (points), one-dimensional edges (segments), and two-dimensional faces (polygons). It is a useful simplification to demand that the faces be convex polygons, which was defined to be bounded. This is no loss of generality since any nonconvex face can be partitioned into convex ones. Convex polyhedra are called polytopes, sometimes 3-polytopes to emphasize their threedimensionality (the notation in the literature is unfortunately not standardized. Here, a polytope is defined to be convex and bounded, and a polyhedron to be bounded). A polytope is a polyhedron that is convex in that the segment connecting any two of its points is inside. Just as convex polygons can be characterized by the local requirement that each vertex be convex, polytopes can be specified locally by requiring that all dihedral angles be convex (). Dihedral angles are the internal angles in space at an edge between the planes containing its two incident faces. For any polytope, the sum of the faces angles around each vertex are at most 2, but this condition does not alone imply convexity. 2.1. POINT/SEGMENT IN POLYHEDRON Determining whether a point is inside a polyhedron has many applications, amongst them, collision detection: determining if a moving point has penetrated an object. There are two types of polyhedron, the convex ones (polytopes) and the nonconvex ones. Here, it is considered that the polyhedron, convex or not, is composed by a set of triangular faces. This condition is justified later, and does not imply loss of generality once the surface of any solid object can be represented by a set of triangular faces of appropriated sides. The nonconvex case admits two solutions based on: solid angles and ray-crossing: Solid angles It depends on a notion of signed solid angle, a measure of the fraction of a sphere surface consumed by a cone apexed at a point. It is measured in steradians, which assigns 4 to the full-sphere angle. The solid angle to a tetrahedron with apex q and base T is the surface area of a unit sphere S falling within the tetrahedron when q is placed at the center of S, and the faces incident to q are extended (if necessary) to cut through S. The sign of the angle depends on the orientation of T. if the solid angles formed by q and every face of a polyhedron P are summed, the result is 4 if q P and zero of q P. This provides an elegant algorithm for point in polyhedron, which, suffers the same pragmatic flaws as its two-dimensional counterpart: it is subject to numerical errors, and it is slow. A timing comparison between the ray-crossing code to be presented below and an implementation of the solid angle approach showed the latter to be twenty-five times slower (ORourke, 1997). Their code is, however, much shorter. Ray-crossings The logic behind the ray-crossing algorithm in three dimensions is: q is inside if a ray from q to infinity crosses the boundary of P an odd number of times. A ray to infinity can be effectively simulated by a long segment qr, long enough so that r is definitely outside P. The problematic aspect of this approach is to develop a scheme to count crossings accurately in the presence of the wide variety of possible degeneracies that could occur: qr could lie in a face of P, could hit a vertex, could collinearly overlap with an edge, hit an edge transversely, etc. To the convex case, the problem is easier and the solution is based on the sign of the volume of a tetrahedron formed by the point and a triangle in the solid surface.

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Volume sign The tetrahedron volume sign test consists of to calculate the volume of the tetrahedron built by the union of a triangle, which belongs to the boundary surface, and the point to be checked. For convention the normal to the contact surface is taken pointing to outside of the volume, as shown in Figure 1. Positive and negative volumes define the two states of the Boolean test while zero indicates that the four vertices are coplanar.

Figure 1 Tetrahedron volume sign. In the coplanar case the point is on the contact surface. It should be noted that the volume equal zero in this case do not means that the value of the tetrahedron volume is numerically zero, it only means that this value is equal to the minimal tetrahedron volume that maintains the point outside. In other words, the distance between the point and the triangle-plane on the surface contact is equal to the radius of the line at this point. Positives values of the tetrahedron volume indicated that the point is outside the volume and, obviously, the contact surface was not crossed. In this case, the test stops. The point is inside the volume if the tetrahedron volumes were negative for all triangles on the surface contact. Of course to check all triangles on the contact surface against every point to be checked is not of interest. Then an appropriated data structure needs to be used to define the volumes and guarantee the efficiency of the algorithm by an optimized search. An alternative when the volume is nonconvex consists of divide this volume in a set of convex ones and enables the volume sign test to be used. Numerical experiments have shown that this procedure is very attractive for many nonconvex volumes. Bounding Box test In addition it is included in this algorithm a very simple bounding-box test. This test consist of put the volume inside a box and before start the volume sign test, it is verified if the point is inside the box. The bounding-box test has a very low cost and eliminates a lot of unnecessary computations. The Figure 2 shows the bounding box for a very simple body (volume), a cube.

Figure 2 First bounding box verification. In order to turn more efficient and to refine the search for the collision points, sub bounding boxes are created. That is made dividing the external bounding box in parts or sections of the volume. Those parts are verified independently, with that, when the contact is

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detected in a sub-volume of the original volume the other parts do not need to be verified. A division of the bounding box for the volume in Figure 2 is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Bounding box division. That procedure may not bring clear advantages for very simple volumes, but in bodies with complex geometry the advantages become quite sensitive. Segment test Before searching for points of the segment (element) in contact with the volume, its ends are verified. If the two ends of the segment (element nodes) are in contact with the volume, no additional test needs to be done. In that case the whole element is considered in contact with the volume (of course an appropriate finite element discretization is required). If only one of the nodes or none of then is in contact with the volume, some additional tests need to be done to determine the element part in contact with the volume. For that condition two cases needs to be analyzed. The first case occurs when one of the element nodes is in contact with the volume, as shown in Figure 4. In this case, it is necessary to determine the point where the element stops being in contact with the volume. That verification, starting from N1, consists of walking on the element until finding the point where it stops being in contact with the volume.

Figure 4 Element with only one node on the contact surface. In the second case, the two element nodes are not in contact with the volume. In that case, the two points delimiting the contact area of the element with the volume (in case they exist) are between the nodes. Some initial verifications are made to guide the search in the element. Initially, the element is divided in four parts, with that three internal points are defined, as shown in Figure 5 (a). It is verified the position of those points relative to the volume. For example, if the point a is in contact or have invaded the volume, one of the two points delimiting the contact area is between a and N1. The search is made from a to N1. With this, it is possible to determine where the points are in the element length, as shown in Figure 5 (b). In the worst case, when the three points are not in contact with the volume it is necessary to verify the whole element length. If a contact point is found, probably the finite element discretization is not appropriate to model the contact at this point. Maybe the element length is very big and/or this region is a corner of the volume.

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Search from N1 to N2 First point If Check(a) = True First Point between N1 and a Else If Check(b) = True First Point between a and b Else If Check(c) = True First Point between b and c Else First Point not founded End if Search from N2 to N1 Second point If Check(c) = True Second Point between N2 and c Else If Check(b) = True Second Point between c and b Else If Check(a) = True Second Point between b and a Else Second Point not founded End if

Figure 5 Initial search on the element: (a) auxiliary points; (b) search span.

3.

FORMULATION OF CONTACT MODEL

Traditional contact models consider for instance a generalized scalar element, consisting of two nodes linked by a non-linear gap spring. Here, the contact model is geometrically defined by volumes that cannot interpenetrate. A penetration stiffness is defined for each volume, lateral friction can also be considered. Geometrically, the volumes consist of a region bounded by a surface that can not be crossed. Therefore, the contact algorithm works by monitoring the position of nodes along a section of the line (mooring lines, risers or pipelines) and comparing these to the instantaneous location of contact surfaces at each solution iteration. In a rigid contact model, once determined that the node has crossed a contact surface, its position is rest back to the contact surface and a boundary condition is applied to the node in the direction normal to the contact surface to restrain the node at that location. The reaction needs to be monitored at each subsequent solution iteration and, when its value becomes negative, that is, the node is attempting to move away from the contact surface, the boundary condition is released and the node is permitted to move away from the contact surface. There are many problems associated to the use of rigid contact model (Grealish et al, 2005). The major difficulty associated with this approach is the use of boundary conditions to constrain the motion of the nodes. When a node impacts a contact surface with a significant initial velocity, the boundary condition that is applied effectively imparts an instantaneous impulse (change in momentum) to the node. Such an input contains frequency components at all frequencies and so has the potential to excite every response frequency in the structure. It follows that, in order to capture the contact accurately, it is necessary to be able to model the full frequency content of the structure response. As this may contain very high frequency components, this requires an extremely small timestep, leading to long simulation runtimes. It should be noted that, with a sufficiently small timestep, the impact is modeling accurately. This however, may require a simulation timestep that is impracticably small. The elastic contact model proposed here consists of a generalized elastic surface contact algorithm. The contact is modeled by augmentation of the global stiffness matrix, based on the orientation and contact stiffness of the contact surfaces, in case of line/hull contact, and based on the displacement direction and the internal efforts, in case of line/line contact. That elastic surface algorithm provides a robust tool for modeling line/hull, line/line interaction, and offers significant benefits of run-time performance and solution robustness over a rigid approach and over others elastic models, due an efficient and robust search for collision situations. Here, no contact reactions are monitored, whenever a node leaves a contact surface, the surface stiffness contribution is removed.

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The algorithm has been shown capable of capturing the detailed characteristics of the bodies (mooring lines, risers, hulls) interaction, in a sophisticated and realistic model, including relative axial and transverse motion with anisotropic friction effects. Contact surface The contact is not restricted to being at a single point on the line, it is considered to occur over the area of the contact surface. With this, each surface region can contact, or support, multiple points of the line. This represents the most realistic approach to modeling line/hull interaction. For any node on the surface contact, the appropriated stiffness terms corresponding to each of the contact are incorporated in the global stiffness matrix at the relevant location. The orientation of the stiffness is determined by the instantaneous orientation of the contact surface. Also, the friction stiffness/load is distributed between all of the nodes on contact with a contact surface. Friction effects The friction effects are accounted for, and these are included by means of a non-linear spring. Figure 6 shows a typical force-deflection relationship. This approach to modeling friction is similar in many aspects to the actual contact modeling itself, in that friction force are generated by the spring, rather than by the application of boundary conditions.

Figure 6 4. NUMERICAL EXAMPLES

The proposed contact model has been incorporated into a computer program for the coupled static and dynamic analysis of floating offshore systems. Several small preliminary problems have been run to test the validity of the algorithms. A variety of examples involving complex configurations and nonlinear boundary conditions were also analyzed, including those presented in this section. Reeling Model The first example consists of a hose storage reel. The hose reel is a steel plate drum and a support frame that is built up from beams. The starboard bearing has a hollow shaft to allow passage of crude oil piping to the swivel. A control desk from which the hose reel can be operated is mounted on the upper platform. A spooling device allows proper winding of the hose onto the drum. Both drum and spooling device are hydraulically driven at variable speed. The presented contact model is applied to the reel shown in Figure 7, belonging to the FPSO MARLIM SUL hove anchor located in the Marlim Sul Field in the Campos Basin, 68 miles off the coast of the state of Rio de Janeiro, offshore Brazil. In this model, the Reel is modeled to be the contact volume and the floating hose is modeled by a finite element mesh. The idea is to link one of the hoses end to the reel end apply an angular velocity on it, as shown in Figure 8. With this, it is possible to observe all

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stages of the reeling procedure. It should be noted that the focus here is not the line analysis, but investigate the efficiency of the contact model.

Figure 7 Hose Reel Reel and hose characteristics The main characteristics of the reel and the floating hose are in Table 1. The geometrical model of the reel was created in a mesh generator program, in which all elements are triangular (as discussed previously), to represent the actual dimensions of the structure. The finite element discretization of the hose is made by nonlinear frame elements based in a co-rotational formulation (Crisfield, 1990) that allows the consideration of the flexional stiffness of the hose. The physical properties of the hose and its floating material are shown in Table 2.

Figure 8 Reeling Model.

Table 1 Main geometric characteristics of the Hose Reel

Properties Floating hose length to be stored [m] Hose inside diameter [inch] Hose outside diameter (floating material) [mm] Drum diameter [mm] Drum length (between flanges) [mm] Overall length hose reel [mm] Overall width hose reel [mm] Overall height hose reel [mm] Total mass hose reel (including filled hose) [ton] Values 250 20 850 7,200 5,500 13,000 12,800 11,900 150

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Table 2 Physical and geometric characteristics of the hose

Segment Hose EI (t.m2) EA (t) 96925 Wair (t/m) 0.2734 Wwater (t/m) CD 0.2381 1,7 CM 2,0

Performed Simulations A dynamic simulation was performed with the hose reel model to present the first results of the efficiency of the contact procedure during the dynamic analysis. To perform the analysis, a vertical line modeled the hose and one of its ends was linked to the reel, being tangent to its radius, as shown in Figure 8. Once connected, the reel begins to gyrate by action of a prescribed angular displacement in its axis. The angular velocity is kept constant. The application of a small current load caused the hose to roll up in cycles without overlapping, without the need to use a guide. A perfect contact between hose and reel is observed during the reeling process as shown in Figures 9 and 10.

Figure 9 One cycle.

Figure 10 Several cycles. Floating Offloading Hose Offloading hoses are pipes used to transport fluids, resultants of the petroleum explotation process, from a floating offshore system to another, in general, from a storage unit to a transport unit (Costa et al, 2002).

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Before the offloading operation, the hose has a stowed configuration, as shown in Figure 11. This configuration is generated using dynamic relaxation techniques as proposed in (Silva, 2005).

Figure 11 Offloading floating hose. However, this kind of configuration may become a problem if the current load carries the hose and positions it under an emergency boat area. In an emergency situation, this could hinder the crew from safely exiting the ship. For a numerical simulation to be able to evaluate the possibility of this situation, the contact model presented here must be employed to consider the contact between the hose and the hull of the ship. Therefore, the objective here is to perform a dynamic analysis of a stowed hose under the action of current effects, representing the approximation and contact of the hose with the hull. With this, one can identify if the final configuration for the line represents a danger in an emergency situation. Geometric Characteristics of the Floating Unit To represent an offshore unit carrying a stowed hose, VLCC hull with the characteristics shown in Table 3 is considered. The hull is modeled by a triangular mesh generator program. Only the stern and a few lateral areas near the water surface that could possibly be reached by the length of the line are considered by the contact algorithm. The remainder of the elements of the mesh of the hull are considered only for visualization purposes, but are not considered by the contact model. This provides more efficiency to the contact algorithm once the search for contact is made in a smaller domain. Table 3 Main geometric characteristics of the Ship
Propriety Drought (m) Height (m) Beam (m) Length Values (real scale) 21 27 55 320

Hose Characteristics The hose is modeled by one segment with distributed buoyancy. The properties are present on Table 4. Table 4 Geometric and Physical characteristics of the hose
Segment Length (m) 278.5 Nominal Diam.(In) EA (t) 10 6300 EI (t.m2) 20 Weight in air (t/m) Wet Weight (t/m) 0.12 -0.08 CD 1.2 CM 2.0

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Performed Simulations The floating hose is modeled by mesh of frame FE to consider its axial and bending stiffness. A dynamic simulation was performed applying environmental loading of current and wave as pointed in Table 5. The ship has Azimuth of 0 degrees (pointed to North), making the current act obliquely on the system, and consequently dragging the hose to a contact with the hull. Figure 12 shows the hose configuration after colliding with the hull of the ship. Table 5 Environmental conditions applied on the system
Current Profile Depth (m) Speed (m/s) 0 0.72 100 0.61 400 0 Regular Wave H Tp 5 10 Going to E E E Coming from S Azimuth (degrees) 90 90 90 Azimuth (degrees) 0

Figure 12 Hose-Hull contact model. The same analysis is now made, without considering the contact between the hose and the hull. The resulting configuration is shown in Figure 13.

Figure 13 Configuration without contact modeling. Several points stress the relevance of the use of an efficient contact algorithm: it allows the engineer to make a better choice for the design of a stowed hose, by providing the assessment of the possibility of a hose hindering the use of emergency boats. Moreover, it can also help the engineer to recommend a better positioning of the emergency boats in a new design of this kind of floating unit.

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5.

FINAL REMARKS

This work presented a tool intended to improve the applicability and accuracy of coupled analysis of offshore floating units, making the simulations more realistic. Such tool represents, during the dynamic analysis, the contact between lines and the platform, as well as the contact involving different lines and/or different platforms in the same model. The generalized contact model presented here avoids some limitations of the computational tools traditionally used for the static and dynamic analysis of offshore structures. Also, this tool provides the engineer with several relevant information at preliminary design stages. The two main advantages of the presented contact model may be summarized as follows: (1) Because contact is accounted for by incorporation of stiffness terms rather than by application of boundary conditions, the response of the structure at the contacts points remains a solution variable (that is, it is not prescribed). This has the effect of eliminating the high frequency noise phenomenon associated to contact with rigid surfaces and the consequent requirement to use very small timesteps. (2) The use of stiffness terms for contact modeling means that it is a straightforward matter to model contact with multiple surfaces (which can be at any orientation). This means that it is possible to model contact with multiple surfaces. In summary, the presented contact algorithm was shown to be quite efficient and robust, and comprises an important contribution to the analysis and design of offshore systems with flexible lines such as mooring lines, risers and hoses. The resulting numerical tool is able to provide valuable knowledge for the design of safe offshore operations. 6. REFERENCES

CORRA, F., N., Application of Hybrid Methodologies in Parametric Studies on the Behavior of Offshore Systems (In Portuguese). M.Sc Thesis, COPPE/UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, 2003. COSTA, A. P. S., ROLO, L.F.A., GOULART, M.P., SILVA, S.H.S.C., Offshore Loading Trends In Brazil, World Maritime Technology Conference, 2002. CRISFIELD, M. A., A Consistent Co-Rotational Formulation for Non-Linear, ThreeDimensional, Beam-Elements, Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg., vol. 81, pp. 131-150, 1990. GREALISH, F., LANG, D., CONNOLLY, A., LANE, M., Advances in Contact Modelling for Simulation of Deepwater pipeline Installation, Rio Pipeline Conference & Exposition, October 17-19, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2005. OROURKE, J. Computational Geometry in C, Massachusetts, Cambridge University Press, 1997. SENRA, S.F., "Metodologias de Anlise e Projeto Integrado de Sistemas Flutuantes para Explorao de Petrleo Offshore", Tese de D. Sc. , COPPE/UFRJ, Programa de Engenharia Civil, Abril de 2004. SILVA, D. M. L., Generation of initial stable configurations of flexible lines by Dynamic Relaxation Methods (In Portuguese). M.Sc thesis, COPPE/UFRJ, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, 2005.