• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.539-549
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• 2022

Accidental anchor drop can cause disturbances to seabed materials and pose significant threats to the safety and serviceability of submarine structures such as pipelines. In this study, a series of anchor drop tests was carried out to investigate the penetration mechanism of a Hall anchor in sand and clay. A special anchor drop apparatus was designed to model the inflight drop of a Hall anchor. Results indicate that Coriolis acceleration was the primary cause of large horizontal offsets in sand, and earth gravity had negligible impact on the lateral movement of dropped anchors. The indued final horizontal offset was shown to increase with the elevated drop height of an anchor, and the existence of water can slow down the landing velocity of an anchor. It is also observed that water conditions had a significant effect on the influence zone caused by anchors. The vertical influence depth was over 5 m, and the influence radius was more than 3 m if the anchor had a drop height of 25 m in dry sand. In comparison, the vertical influence depth and radius reduced to less than 3 m and 2 m, respectively, when the anchor was released from 10 m height and fell into the seabed with a water depth of 15 m. It is also found that the dynamically penetrating anchors could significantly influence the earth pressure in clay. There is a non-linear increase in the measured penetration depth with kinematic energy, and the resulted maximum earth pressure increased dramatically with an increase in kinematic energy. Results from centrifuge model tests in this study provide useful insights into the penetration mechanism of a dropped anchor, which provides valuable data for design and planning of future submarine structures.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.124-136
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• 2024

As the number of offshore wind-power installations increases, collision accidents with vessels occur more frequently. This study investigates the risk of collision damage with operating vessels that may occur during the operation of an offshore wind turbine. The floater used in the collision study is a 15 MW UMaine VolturnUS-S (semi-submersible type), and the colliding ships are selected as multi-purpose vessels, service operation vessels, or anchor-handling tug ships based on their operational purpose. Collision analysis is performed using ABAQUS and substantiation is performed via a drop impact test. The collision analyses are conducted by varying the ship velocity, displacement, collision angle, and ship shape. By applying this numerical model, the extent of damage and deformation of the collision area is confirmed. The analysis results show that a vessel with a bulbous bow can cause flooding, depending on the collision conditions. For damage caused by collision, various collision angles must be considered based on the internal stiffener arrangement. Additionally, the floater can be flooded with relatively small collision energy when the colliding vessel has a bulbous bow.

• Bulletin of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.87-95
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• 1990

Conventional methods to estimate natural frequencies and damping ratios of structures from measured response time series obtained during impact tests are reviewed. Maximum Entropy Method and Least Square Prony Method are introduced to alleviate the inherent limitation of the conventional methods. The performance of the methods are explored through computer simulation. As an example of application, they are applied to the time series obtained from an anchor drop-and-snup test of a container ship and the result is compared to that of conventional FFT method. As a result of the computer simulation, it is found that Maximum Entropy Method is very efficient to estimate natural frequencies of structures when two neighboring natural frequencies are close enough and short data records are only available, but it is not a reliable estimator for damping ratios. And it is also found that Least Square Prony Method is efficient to estimate the natural frequencies and damping ratios of highly damped structural system, but the estimation efficiency of damping ratios is significantly deteriorated in the presence of significant additive noise.