• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.22-26
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• 2013

The purpose of this study was to improve the design of a mooring line by attaching a lumped mass to it on the seabed. A numerical analysis of the redesigned mooring system is performed to analyze the effect of the weight of the attached lumped mass using the commercial software Orcaflex. The ultimate tension of the mooring system with the lumped mass is compared with that of a bare mooring line in the original design. An appropriately designed weight for the lumped mass is found to induce a critical lifted point in the mooring line by floater motion in the ultimate condition to move toward the floater position from the anchor point, while maintaining a similar safety factor for the mooring line. On the other hand, it is shown that excess weight for the lumped mass induces snapping in a mooring line, resulting in low safety factor for the mooring system. The distance between lumped weights is shown to be a minor parameter affecting the safety of a mooring line, although a shorter line has an advantage from an economic point of view. Using the optimal weight for the lumped mass attached to the mooring line on a seabed reduces the mooring line length and installation area occupied by a mooring system under real sea conditions.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.27 no.6
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• pp.16-21
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• 2013

In this paper, the mooring system for a floating wave energy farm is designed based on a two-dimensional analysis. The mooring system uses an anchorless mooring line linking two floaters in a floating wave energy farm. The basic equation to determine the length of the mooring line between the two floaters is proposed. The other properties such as the diameter and pretension are taken from the mooring line for a single floater. The dynamic behavior and safety of the designed mooring system under extreme ocean conditions are analyzed with the commercial software Orcaflex. A numerical study shows the stability and high safety in tension of the designed mooring lines for a floating wave energy farm. The proposed anchorless mooring system for a floating wave energy farm results in a considerable reduction in the length of the mooring line, contributing to the economics of a floating wave energy farm.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.77-85
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• 2012

A study was performed on the design of a mooring line to maintain the position of a floating WEC (wave energy conversion) system. The procedure to design a mooring line is set up and the safety of the designed mooring system is evaluated using commercial software, Orcaflex. The characteristics curve for one line is analyzed to determine the properties and pretension of a mooring line. While considering the ocean environmental condition and importance of a floating WEC system, a multi-line layout is determined. A 4-point mooring system with 4 lines shows the instability in the yaw motion of the floating WEC system under a designed ocean environmental condition. The redesigned 4-point mooring system with 8 lines is found to be safe on the condition of a harsh ocean environment. The floating WEC system with the redesigned mooring system also shows stable motion in surge and pitch under operating conditions. From a parametric study on the mooring line length, the extreme value of the mooring line tension is found to be very sensitive to the pretension and length of mooring line. The results of this study can contribute to the establishment of a design procedure for mooring lines.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.155-160
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• 2002

In this paper, a compliant buoy mooring system of a floating cylindrical structure in shallow water depth is studied experimentally. The compliant buoy mooring system consists of four buoys, vertical mooring legs and horizontal mooring lines. A series of model test were carried out at KRISO ocean engineering basin for various mooring parameters; line length, pretension of mooring leg and mooring layouts and environmental conditions; regular and irregular waves combined with current and wind. The mooring line tensions and 6-DOF motions of the floating structure were measured using water-proof load cells and 3 CCD camera system. The results of a series of model tests were discussed on nonlinear motion behaviors of the floating structure and characterisitics of cumulative distributions of mooring line peak tensions.

• Bulletin of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.3-12
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• 1986

This paper investigates the static configurations and the dynamic behaviors of a single point mooring line. To obtain the static configuration and static tension distribution along the mooring line, including the effect of fluid nonlinear drag and the elasticity of the line, the Runge-Kutta fourth order numerical method was used. The relationship between the horizontal excursion and the horizontal restoring force component of the mooring line, which is very important to a mooring line design, and the effect of a subsurface buoy on the static configuration are presented. In nonlinear dynamic analysis including nonlinear fluid drag acting on the line and geometrical nonlinearity for large deflections, finite element method using updated Lagrangian was used to obtain the solution. In the case of upper end harmonic excitation of the mooring line, the dynamic motion and the tension were also presented.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.178-201
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• 2019

The appropriate design of a mooring system to maintain the position of an offshore structure in deep sea under various environmental loads is important. Fatigue design of the mooring line considering OPB/IPB(out-of-plane bending/in-plane bending) became an essential factor after the incident of premature fatigue failure of the mooring chain due to OPB/IPB in the Girassol region in West Africa. In this study, mooring line fatigue analysis was performed considering the OPB/IPB of a spread moored FPSO in deep sea. The tension of the mooring line was derived by hydrodynamic analysis using the de-coupled analysis method. The floater motion time histories were calculated under the assumption that the mooring line behaves in quasi-static manner. Additional time domain analysis was carried out by prescribing the obtained motions on top of the selected critical mooring line, which was determined based on spectral fatigue analysis. In addition, nonlinear finite element analysis was performed considering the material nonlinearities, and both the interlink stiffness and stress concentration factors were derived. The fatigue damage to the chain surface was estimated by combining both the hydrodynamic and stress analysis results.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.161-168
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• 2016

This paper presents a methodology through which the time series of the dynamic response of mooring line tension can be predicted without relying on a time-consuming nonlinear time-domain analysis. The mooring line tension for the target short-term sea states was predicted using a Hammerstein-Wiener model, a popular system identification scheme, based upon the pre-calculated motion-tension time history data for some selected short-term sea states that do not overlap with the targeted ones. The obtained mooring line tension was further processed, and a fatigue damage comparison was made between the predicted and calculated values. The results showed that the predicted time series of the mooring line tension matched the calculated one fairly well. Thus, it is expected that the methodology may be employed to enhance the efficiency of mooring line tension analysis.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.47-54
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• 2014

When an anchor penetrates and is installed under a seabed, a portion of the mooring line connected to the anchor is also embedded under the seabed. This embedded mooring line affects the capacity of the anchor in two ways. First, the frictional resistance that occurs between the mooring line and the seabed reduces the pulling force acting on the anchor. Second, the embedded part of the mooring line forms a reverse catenary shape due to the bearing resistance of the soil, so that an inclined pulling force is applied to the anchor. To evaluate the mooring line's effect on the capacity of an anchor in sand, centrifuge model tests were performed using two relative sand densities of 76% and 51% while changing the anchor depths. The test results showed that the load is reduced much more in deep and dense sand, and the inclination angle of the load is lower in shallow and loose sand.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.266-272
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• 2021

Mooring systems are among the most important elements employed to control the motion of floating offshore structures on the sea. Considering the use of polymer material, a new method is proposed to address the creep characteristics rather than the method of using a tension load cell for measuring the tension of the mooring line. This study uses a synthetic mooring rope made from a polymer material, which usually consists of three parts: center, eye, and splice, and which makes a joint for two successive ropes. We integrate the optical sensor into the synthetic mooring ropes to measure the rope tension. The different structure of the mooring line in the longitudinal direction can be used to measure the loads with the entire mooring configuration in series, which can be defined as SMART (Smart Mooring and Riser Truncation) mooring. To determine the characteristics of the basic SMART mooring, a SMART mooring with a diameter of 3 mm made of three different polymer materials is observed to change the wavelength that responds as the length changes. By performing the longitudinal tension experiment using three different SMART moorings, it was confirmed that there were linear wavelength changes in the response characteristics of the 3-mm-diameter SMART moorings. A 54-mm-diameter SMART mooring is produced to measure the response of longitudinal tension on the center, eye, and splice of the mooring, and a longitudinal tension of 100 t in step-by-step applied for the Maintained Test and Fatigue Cycle Test is conducted. By performing a longitudinal tension experiment, wavelength changes were detected in the center, eye, and splice position of the SMART moorings. The results obtained from each part of the installed sensors indicated a different strain measurement depending on the position of the SMART moorings. The variation of the strain measurement with the position was more than twice the result of the difference measurement, while the applied external load increased step-by-step. It appears that there is a correlation with an externally generated longitudinal tensional force depending on the cross-sectional area of each part of the SMART mooring.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.299-307
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• 2017

The design of the mooring line to maintain the position of an offshore structure in rough marine environments is recognized as a very important consideration. Conventional fatigue evaluation of a mooring line was performed by considering the tensile force acting on the mooring line, but the mooring line broke after 238 days in the girassol area even though the expected fatigue life was expected to be longer. The causes of this event are known to be due to OPB/IPB (out-of-plane bending/in-plane bending) caused by chain link friction due to the excessive tensile strength of the mooring line. In this study, three models with different boundary conditions were proposed for fatigue analysis of a mooring line considering OPB/IPB. Interlink stiffness was calculated by nonlinear structure analysis and a stress concentration factor was derived. In addition, the sensitivity of interlink stiffness according to the magnitude of tensile force, large deformation effect, and coefficient of friction was analyzed, and the effect of critical elastic slip and bending moment calculation position on interlink stiffness was confirmed.