Environmental Conditions & Criteria,

Environmental Loads,
Floating Structures Dynamics/Responses.

By: Dr. Eng. Rudi W. Prastianto

Department of Ocean Engineering
ITS - Surabaya
One of the key issues in the design of offshore
structures

• Defining the environmental conditions, for:

• The transportation route and installation site,
• Determining the environmental loads acting on the structure (for conditions:
e.g. transit, installation, operational, extreme and survival).
• The parameters to be defined in the environmental conditions may be
found from design codes  e.g. API RP 2T (among of several other
codes).
• The prediction of extreme values  is required for the structural
strength evaluation.
Environmental Loads

• According to API RP 2T (1997)  the environmental loads to be

considered in the design of offshore structures:
• wind forces
• current forces
• wave loads
• ice loads
• wave impact forces
• Earthquakes
• accidental loads
• fire and blast loading
Sea loads on Slender Structures
• For slender structures (e.g. jackets, jack-ups, pipelines, risers and
mooring lines)  viscous flow phenomena are of importance.
• Wave loads on slender structures:
• May be predicted using Morison equation  (Sarpkaya and Isaacson, 1981;
and Chakrabarti, 1987).
• The Morison equation  assumes the force is the sum of inertia force & drag
force.
• Vortex-induced vibration (VIV)  occurs when the wave/current
flow cause resonance with the natural frequency of the structure.
• For the design of pipelines and risers  it is necessary to account for
the wave-induced fatigue and VIV induced fatigue (Bai, 2001).
Sea loads on Large-Volume Structures

• When the size of the structure is comparable to the length

of wave  the pressure on the structure may change the
wave field in the vicinity of the structure.
• In the calculation of wave forces  it is then necessary to
account for:
• The diffraction of the waves from the surface of the structure,
and;
• The radiation of the wave from the structure if it moves
(Charkrabarti, 1987).
Sea loads on Large-Volume Structures
• First Order Potential Forces: Panel methods (also called Boundary
Element Methods, integral equation methods or sink-source
methods)  the most common techniques used to analyze the linear
steady state response of large-volume structures in regular waves
(Faltinsen, 1990).
• They are based on potential theory. It is assumed that the oscillation
amplitudes of the fluid and the body are small relative to cross-
sectional dimension of the body.
• The methods can only predict damping due to radiation of surface
waves and added mass. But they do not cover viscous effects.
• In linear analysis of response amplitude operator (RAO)  forces and
response are proportional to wave amplitude and response frequency
are primarily at the wave frequency.
Sea loads on Large-Volume Structures
• Second Order Potential Forces:
• The second order analysis determines additional forces and
responses that are proportional to wave amplitude squared.
• The second order forces include steady force, a wide range of low
frequency forces (which will excite surge, sway and yaw of a
moored floating system) and high frequency forces (which will
excite roll, pitch and heave springing of a TLP).
• The most common way to solve non-linear wave-structure
problems is to use perturbation analysis with the wave amplitude
as a small parameter. The non-linear problem is solved in second-
order (Faltinsen, 1990).
Sea loads on Large-Volume Structures
• In addition to the Boundary Element Methods  Finite Element Method or
Hybrid (BEM & FEM) methods  available to develop commercial codes for a
body of general geometry's.
• When viscous forces become important  a hybrid diffraction and Morison drag
method is required, in which the drag force calculation based on the undisturbed
flow but a more elaborate approach is applied to account for the change in flow
velocity due to diffraction.

• Bhattacharyya (1978)  a comprehensive discussion on:

• The wave loads,
• Deck wetness and slamming,
• The influence of slamming on the hull girder bending moment.
Floating Structures Dynamics/Responses

• Dynamic response of an offshore structure includes  the sea-keeping

motion of the vessel in waves, the vibration of the structure, and the
response of the moored systems.
• The response of an offshore structure may be categorized by frequency-
content as below:
• Wave-frequency response: response with period in the range of 5 - 15 seconds. This
is the ordinary see-keeping motion of a vessel. It may be calculated using the firs-
order motion theory.
• Slowly-varying response: response with period in the range of 100 - 200 seconds.
This is the slow drift motion of a vessel with its moorings. The slowly-varying
response is of equal importance as the linear first-order motions in design of
mooring and riser systems. Wind can also result in slowly-varying oscillations of
marine structures with high natural periods. This is caused by wind gusts with
significant energy at periods of the order of magnitude of a minute.
Figure below shows wave frequency and slow-drift content for a floating system.
An example figure shows wave frequency and slow-
drift constituents for a floating system
 Floating Structures Dynamics/Responses
• High-frequency response: response with period substantially below the wave period.
• For ocean-going ships  high frequency springing forces arise producing a high-frequency
structural vibration that is termed whipping (Bhattacharyya,l978).
• Owing to the high axial stiffness of the tethers  TLPs have natural periods of 2 to 4 seconds in
heave, roll, and pitch. Springing  a kind of resonance response to a harmonic oscillation
(CMPT,1998).

• Impulsive response: Slamming occurs on the ship/platform bottoms when impulse loads
with high-pressure peaks are applied as a result of impact between a body and water.
• Ringing of TLP tethers is a kind of transient response to an impulsive load. The high frequency
response and impulsive response cannot be considered independently of the structural response.
Hydroelasticity is an important subject.
• Damping forces are important when a system is under resonant loading  which is cyclically
applied at one of the system's natural frequencies. They consist of hydrodynamic damping,
structural damping, soil/foundation damping, etc.
• Details of motion and load calculations  Bhattacharyya (1978), Beck et a1(1989), Faltinsen
(1990), and CMPT (1998).
Structural Response Analysis
Structural Analysis
A general procedure for structural analysis of FPSO (Zhao, Bai and Shin,
2001):
1). Defining the major service profiles for a FPSO based on the operations that
significantly affect  the local deck load, storage tank loads, and the global
motion responses.
• Typical operations  (1) normal operation, (2) storm survival condition, (3)
loading condition, and (4) offloading condition.

2). Determining a series of static deck and tank loading patterns l, based on the
major service profiles.

3). Calculating global motion of the FPSO with mooring and riser systems and the
hydrodynamic forces on the FPSO for each l,
Structural Response Analysis
Structural Analysis
4). Loading the hull-girder structure under each l, wave frequency and wave
heading.
The following components should be included (Zhao, 1996; ABS, 1992):
• Static deck and internal tank loads
• Static structural loads
• Hydrostatic forces
• Hydrodynamic forces
• Motion induced hydrostatic restoring forces
• Motion induced structural inertial loads and internal tank sloshing loads
• Mooring and riser forces
• Shear forces, bending moments, and torsional moments like structural boundary
conditions
Structural Response Analysis

5). Performing structural analysis to calculate stress FRF H(; k ; l)

for each wave frequency , wave heading k, and loading pattern l.
• Each combination of (; k ; l)  forms a different loading case in
structural analysis.
• The Finite Element Method or other simplified structural analysis 
can be applied for the various levels of analysis.
An example table of tank loading patterns (ABS,
1992)
 Structural Response Analysis

• The hydrodynamic force components : (1) incident wave forces, (2)

diffraction wave forces, and (3) motion-induced radiation forces (added
mass and damping forces).
• Hydrodynamic analysis software, which use three-dimensional models
(preferred) or two-dimensional strip methods, are widely applied.
 Structural Response Analysis
• The wave heading k is defined with
respect to a FPSO (see the Figure).
• Depending on the mooring type, the
wave probability at direction k 
needs to be converted into FPSO local
coordinates.
• For example, if the turret-mooring
system is adopted, the weather vaning
should be considered, and some of the
wave headings can be removed.
 Response Amplitude Operator (RAO)
• Determining the stress Frequency Response Function (FRF) or Response
Amplitude Operator (RAO)  H(; k ; l) :
• One of the major efforts in the strength assessment, because it allows the transfer of the
exciting waves into the response of structures.
• This concept of linear dynamic theory  applicable to any type of oscillatory "load"
(wave, wind-gust, mechanical excitation, etc.) and any type of "response" (motion,
tension, bending moment, stress, strain, etc.).
• The RAO could be determined using theoretical computation or experimental
measurement (Bhattacharyya,1978). Almost all of the theoretical computation has
neglected viscosity and used potential flow.
• For a linear system the response function at a wave frequency can be written
as:

• where (t)  the wave profile as a function of time, t.

 The Concept of RAO for a Structure

• The structure  in a
general terms  as a
''black box".
• The input to the box
 time-history of
loads.
• The output  from a
structural analysis
 time-history of
the response.
Response Amplitude Operator (RAO)

• The basic assumption behind the RAO concept is 

linearity :
• Allows superimpose the output based on superimpose of
the input.
• The response to regular oscillatory loading of any
waveform can be obtained by expressing the load as a
Fourier series  then estimate the corresponding Fourier
series of the response for each component.
 Response Amplitude Operator (RAO)
• A typical RAO is shown in
the Figure  a roll RAO of a
barge in beam seas.
• The RAO is given in degrees
(or meters/ft) of motion
amplitude, per meter (or ft)
of wave amplitude and
expressed as a function of
wave period (second).
• The RAO may be calculated
using the first order wave
theory as wave frequency
response.
Response Amplitude Operator (RAO)

• Another application of the RAO  calculate loads in irregular waves.

• Bhattacharyya (1978)  the total response of a vessel in an irregular
seaway is the linear superposition of the response to the individual
components that may be determined using RAO.
• In the calculation of H(; k ; l)  a suitable range of wave
frequency, number of frequency points, and wave headings should
be used.
• The commonly used parameters for an FPSO analysis are:
• Frequency range: 0.20    1.80 rad/s
• Frequency increment: 0.05 rad/s
• Wave heading: 0o to 360o with 15o increment