• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.7 no.4
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• pp.345-369
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• 2017

The ocean environment offshore West Africa is considered to be mild. However, the generated swell from distant North and South Atlantic during austral winter and summer can reach high wave amplitudes with relatively low wave periods or low wave amplitudes with long wave periods, the later can be a crucial scenario to consider when the assessment of vessel resonance is of importance. Most offshore operations, which include offshore drilling, and installation in West Africa, are carried out from floating systems. The response of these systems and performance are governed by characteristics, such as amplitude and frequency of the wave and swell seas. It is therefore important to fully understand the sea conditions offshore Nigeria. This study covers the description of the swell sea offshore Nigeria using Bonga offshore wave measurements collected from the directional wave-rider (DWR), positioned at the Bonga site off the coast of Nigeria.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.3 no.4
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• pp.275-294
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• 2013

Side-by-side offloading operations are widely utilized in engineering practice. The hydrodynamic interactions between two vessels play a crucial role in safe operation. This study focuses on the coupled effects between two floating bodies positioned side-by-side as a shuttle tanker-FPSO (floating production, storage and offloading) system. Several wave directions with different side-by-side distances are studied in order to obtain the variation tendency of the horizontal hydrodynamic coefficients, motion responses and mean drift forces. It is obtained that the coupled hydrodynamics between two vessels is evidently distinguished from the single body case with shielding and exaggerating effects, especially for sway and yaw directions. The resonance frequency and the peak amplitude are closely related with side-by-side separation distance. In addition, the horizontal hydrodynamics of the shuttle tanker is more susceptible to coupled effects in beam waves. It is suggested to expand the gap distance reasonably in order to reduce the coupled drift forces effectively. Attention should also be paid to the second peaks caused by hydrodynamic coupling. Since the horizontal mean drift forces are the most mainly concerned forces to be counteracted in dynamic positioning (DP) system and mooring system, prudent prediction is beneficial in saving consumed power of DP system and reducing tension of mooring lines.