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Investigation of a weathervaning FPSO based on a fully nonlinear boundary element method

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Abstract

This research modifies the existing fully nonlinear potential-flow model to investigate the motion and load responses of a weathervaning floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel subjected to wind, waves, and currents. This study employs the mixed Eulerian-Lagrangian approach to track the instantaneous fully nonlinear free surface and the auxiliary function method to solve the time derivative of the velocity potential. This model develops the free-surface rotation technique and locally updated strategy to simulate the intense interaction between the structure and oblique waves. In the meantime, the slender rod model is applied to account for the coupled effect between the floating body and attached mooring lines, and the wind and current loads are computed by interpolating the coefficient matrix. The results of predictions under different sea conditions are compared with those of the industry standard software ANSYS AQWA and the measurements in a model test, and they are found to be in good agreement. Using this code, the weather-vaning behavior and resonance in the surge and sway motion of a turret-moored FPSO are successfully modeled. The proposed approach also accurately catches the nonlinear wave-structure interaction, such as wave run-up, bow slamming, and asymmetric sectional loads. The water pressure frequency spectra demonstrate that this technique can apply more accurate environmental loads to structure analysis and has the potential to enhance the durability of offshore structures.

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The primary raw data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Funding

This work is supported by High-Tech Ship Project of Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (CBZ3N21-2) and National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFB3306200).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Shipbuilding Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, China

    Shi-Li Sun, Jing Tian, Xue-Qian Zhou & Hui Li

  2. International Joint Laboratory of Naval Architecture and Offshore Technology, Harbin, China

    Shi-Li Sun, Jing Tian, Xue-Qian Zhou & Hui Li

Authors
  1. Shi-Li Sun
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  2. Jing Tian
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  3. Xue-Qian Zhou
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  4. Hui Li
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Contributions

SLS contributed significantly to the algorithm establishment; JT performed the data analysis and wrote the manuscript; XQZ contributed to the conception of the study; HL helped in performing the analysis with constructive discussions.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xue-Qian Zhou.

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Appendices

Appendix A: Abbreviations and nomenclatures

See Tables

Table 7 The list of abbreviations
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7 and

Table 8 The list of main nomenclatures
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Appendix B: The control parameter in numerical simulation

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Table 9 The control parameter of the numerical model
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Table 10 The wind/current coefficient matrix
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Appendix C: The time histories of numerical results under model test conditions

See Figs.

Fig. 14
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The time histories of HOR_OFFSET numerical results

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The time histories of Z_TC numerical results

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The time histories of Pitch numerical results

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The time histories of F_MLINE_02 numerical results

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The time histories of F_MLINE_05 numerical results

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The time histories of F_MLINE_08 numerical results

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Sun, SL., Tian, J., Zhou, XQ. et al. Investigation of a weathervaning FPSO based on a fully nonlinear boundary element method. Nonlinear Dyn 111, 21815–21836 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11071-023-08694-2

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