• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.111-120
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• 2017

It is generally acknowledged that the Steel Catenary Riser (SCR) is the most cost-effective riser type for deep-water offshore fields among various risers, including the SCR, flexible riser, and hybrid riser. However, in West Africa, the SCR type may not be suitable for FPSO systems because the large vertical motion of the floater brings about a considerable riser dynamic response. In this paper, an SCR system is designed for the FPSO in the West African field, where the use of a hybrid riser has been preferred. The proposed SCR configuration fulfills the design criteria of the API, such as the strength check and fatigue life. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis is also carried out to improve the certainty in the SCR design of a deep-water FPSO. The parameters affecting the strength and fatigue performance of the SCR are considered.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.153-160
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• 2010

This paper deals with the topology optimized design of the riser support structures for floating production storage and offloading units (FPSOs) under global and local loading conditions. For a preliminary study and validation of the numerical approach, a simplified plate under static loading is first evaluated with the representative topology optimization methods, the Homogenization Design Method (HDM) and Density Method (DM) or Simple Isotropic Material with Penalization (SIMP). In the context of the corresponding riser support structures, the design problem is formulated such that structure shapes based on design domain variables are determined by minimizing the compliance subject to a mass target, considering the stress criterion. An initial design model is generated based on an actual FPSO riser support configuration. The topology optimization results present improved design performances under various loading conditions, while staying within the allowable limit of the offshore area.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.19 no.5 s.66
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• pp.16-25
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• 2005

The effect of vertical riser support system on the dynamic behaviour of a classical spar platform is investigated. Spar platform generally uses buoyancy-can riser support system, but as water depth gets deeper the alternative riser support system is required due to safety and cost issues. The alternative riser support system is to hang risers off the spar platform using pneumatic cylinders rather than the buoyancy-can. The existing numerical model for hull/mooring/riser coupled dynamics analysis treats riser as an elastic rod truncated at the keel (truncated riser model), thus, in this model, the effect of riser support system can not be modeled correctly. Due to this reason, the truncated riser model tends to overestimate the spar pitch and heave motion. To evaluate more realistic global spar motion, mechanical coupling among risers, guide frames and support cylinders inside of spar moon-pool should be modeled. In the newly developed model, the risers are extended through the moon-pool by using nonlinear finite element methods with realistic boundary condition at multiple guide frames. In the simulation, the vertical tension from pneumatic cylinders is modeled by using ideal-gas equation and the vertical tension from buoyancy-cans is modeled as constant top tension. The different dynamic characteristics between buoyancy-can riser support system and pneumatic riser support system are extensively studied. The alternative riser support system tends to increase spar heave motion and needs damper system to reduce the spar heave motion.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.313-327
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• 2018

Meeting the touchdown point (TDP) target box is one of the challenges during catenary riser installation, especially for deep water or ultra-deep water riser systems. TDP location mismatch compared to the design can result in variation of riser configuration, additional hang-off misalignment, and extra bending loads going into the hang-off porch. A good understanding of the key installation parameters can help to minimize this mismatch, and ensure that the riser global response meets the design criteria. This paper focuses on investigating the potential factors that may affect the touchdown point location, and addressing the challenges both in the design stage and during installation campaign. Conventionally, the vessel offset and current are the most critical factors which may affect the TDP movement during installation. With the offshore exploration going deeper and deeper in the sea (up to 10,000ft), other sources such as the seabed slope and seabed soil stiffness are playing an important role as well. The impacts of potential sources are quantified through case studies for steel catenary riser (SCR) and lazy wave steel catenary riser (LWSCR) in deep water application. Investigations through both theoretical study and numerical validation are carried out. Furthermore, design recommendations are provided during execution phase for the TDP mismatch condition to ensure the integrity of the riser system.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.21-32
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• 2018

Due to the escalation in hydrocarbon consumption, the offshore industry is now looking for advanced technology to be employed for deep sea exploration. Riser system is an integral part of floating structure used for such oil and gas extraction from deep water offering a system of drill twines and production tubing to spread the exploration well towards the ocean bed. Thus, the marine risers need to be precisely employed. The incorporation of the strengthening material, fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) for deep and ultra-deep water riser has drawn extensive curiosity in offshore engineering as it might offer potential weight savings and improved durability. The design for FRP strengthening involves the local design for critical loads along with the global analysis under all possible nonlinearities and imposed loadings such as platform motion, gravity, buoyancy, wave force, hydrostatic pressure, current etc. for computing and evaluating critical situations. Finite element package, ABAQUS/AQUA is the competent tool to analyze the static and dynamic responses under the offshore hydrodynamic loads. The necessities in design and operating conditions are studied. The study includes describing the methodology, procedure of analysis and the local design of composite riser. The responses and fatigue damage characteristics of the risers are explored for the effects of FRP strengthening. A detail assessment on the technical expansion of strengthening riser has been outlined comprising the inquiry on its behavior. The enquiry exemplifies the strengthening of riser as very potential idea and suitable in marine structures to explore oil and gas in deep sea.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.20-33
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• 2010

The paper deals with strength design of a riser support installed on floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel under various loading conditions - operation, extreme, damaged, one line failure case (OLFC) and installation. The design problem is formulated such that thickness sizing variables are determined by minimizing the weight of a riser support structure subject to stresses constraints. The initial design model is generated based on an actual FPSO riser support specification. The finite element analysis (FEA) is conducted using MSC/NASTRAN, and optimal solutions are obtained via moving least squares method (MLSM) in the context of response surface based approximate optimization. For the meta-modeling of inequality constraint functions of stresses, a constraint-feasible moving least squares method (CF-MLSM) is used in the present study. The method of CF-MLSM, compared to a conventional MLSM, has been shown to ensure the constraint feasibility in a case where the approximate optimization process is employed. The optimization results present improved design performances under various riser operating conditions.

• Proceedings of the Korea Committee for Ocean Resources and Engineering Conference
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• 2003.10a
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• pp.323-328
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• 2003

A basic design on a flexible riser in a floating type development system for upwelling deep ocean water is presented. In the numerical study, an implicit finite difference algorithm is employed for three-dimensional riser equations. Fluid and geometric non-linearity and bending stiffness are considered and solved by Newton-Raphson iteration. To keep the depth of end point of a flexible and light riser is very important for upwelling deep ocean water in a floating type development system. Weight attached at the end point of the riser in order to keep its intake depth is designed under the strong surface current and the configuration of the riser is predicted. The results of this study can be contributed to the design of the development system in floating type for upwelling deep ocean water.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.650-658
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• 2021

Flexible risers are usually used as conveying systems to bring ocean resources from sea bed up to onshore. Under ocean environments, risers need to bear complex loads and it is crucial to comprehensively examine riser's configurations and to analyze structural dynamic performances under excitation of bottom vehicle motions, to guarantee structural safe operation and required service lives. In this study, considering a saddle-shaped riser, the influences of some important design parameters, including installation position of buoyancy modules, buoyancy ratio and motion of mining vehicle, on riser's configuration and response are carefully examined. Through our FEM simulations, the spatial distributions of structural tensions and curvatures along of riser length, under different configurations, are compared. Then, the impacts of mining vehicle motion on riser dynamic response are discussed, and structural tolerance performance is assessed. The results show that modules installation position and buoyancy ratio have significant impacts on riser configurations. And, an appropriate riser configuration is obtained through comprehensive analysis on the modules positions and buoyancy ratios. Under this proposed configuration, the structural tension and curvature could moderately change with buoyancy modules and bottom-end conditions, in other words, the proposed saddle-shaped riser has a good tolerance performance to various load excitations.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.87-142
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• 2022

An analysis for the computation of Fatigue Damage Index (FDI) under the effects of the various combination of the ocean loads like random waves, current, platform motion and VIV (Vortex Induced Vibration) for a certain design water depth is a critically important part of the analysis and design of the marine riser platform integrated system. Herein, a 'Computer Simulation Model (CSM)' is developed to combine the advantages of the frequency domain and time domain. A case study considering a steel catenary riser operating in 1000 m water depth has been conducted with semi-submersible. The riser is subjected to extreme environmental conditions and static and dynamic response analyses are performed and the Response Amplitude Operators (RAOs) of the offshore platform are computed with the frequency domain solution. Later the frequency domain results are integrated with time domain analysis system for the dynamic analysis in time domain. After that an extensive post processing is done to compute the FDI of the marine riser. In the present paper importance is given to the nature of the current profile and the VIV. At the end we have reported the detail results of the FDI comparison with VIV and without VIV under the linear current velocity and the FDI comparison with linear and power law current velocity with and without VIV. We have also reported the design recommendations for the marine riser in the regions where the higher fatigue damage is observed and the proposed CSM is implemented in industrially used standard soft solution systems (i.e., OrcaFlex^*TM and Ansys AQWA^**TM), Ms-Excel^***TM, and C++ programming language using its object oriented features.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.247-279
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• 2018

This study aims to investigate the behavioral characteristics of the LWSCR (lazy-wave steel catenary riser) for a turret-moored FPSO (Floating Production Storage Offloading) by using fully-coupled hull-mooring-riser dynamic simulation program in time domain. In particular, the effects of initial geometric profile on the global performance and structural behavior are investigated in depth to have an insight for optimal design. In this regard, a systematic parametric study with varying the initial curvature of sag and arch bend and initial position of touch down point (TDP) is conducted for 100-yr wind-wave-current (WWC) hurricane condition. The FPSO motions, riser dynamics, constituent structural stress results, accumulated fatigue damage of the LWSCR are presented and analyzed to draw a general trend of the relationship between the LWSCR geometric parameters and the resulting dynamic/structural performance. According to this study, the initial curvature of the sag and arch bend plays an important role in absorbing transferred platform motions, while the position of TDP mainly affects the change of static-stress level.