Remaining fatigue life assessment of corroded mooring chains using crack growth modelling

Failures caused by the combined actions of fatigue, corrosion and wear are important safety concerns for mooring chains used on floating structures in the oil and gas industry. Prediction of remaining corrosion fatigue life based on surface condition could therefore be a useful tool for the continued safe operation of corroded chains. This paper investigates the use of crack growth modelling for estimating the remaining corrosion fatigue life of mooring chains that exhibit significant pitting corrosion damage. A crack growth modelling approach is used to produce remaining fatigue life estimates for a selection of severely pitted mooring chains. Using fatigue crack growth rate test results for grade R4 high strength mooring chain steel, empirical crack growth laws are presented for free corrosion and cathodic protection conditions at load ratio R = 0.1. Two different methods for establishing equivalent cracks from surface scans of corrosion damage are presented. The mooring chains are proof loaded as part of their manufacturing process. Residual stresses introduced during this process have therefore been determined by finite element analysis and accounted for in the fatigue crack growth predictions. One of the equivalent crack models, accounting for the single dominant corrosion pit, provided quite accurate fatigue life predictions when compared with full scale test results.     

Low-cycle fatigue assessment of offshore mooring chains under service loading

The integrity of mooring chains is essential to the safety of a range of offshore platforms. However, mooring line failures are occurring earlier than their design lives, with a high number of these failures occurring due to fatigue. Early in the fatigue life of the component fatigue initiation processes occur, where the fatigue hotspot is sensitive to the mean load and there is plastic strain accumulation from the multiaxial stress-strain responses of the material, leading to cyclic plastic damage accumulation. The traditional SN approach suggested by mooring standards does not consider these effects, and it is proposed that this lack of consideration under low-cycle fatigue conditions is the reason for the current non-conservative fatigue assessments of mooring chains. This paper aims to develop a fatigue approach based on a critical plane multiaxial fatigue criterion for mooring chains that can consider the damage-induced by the cyclic plasticity and the mean load effect, to investigate the importance of incorporating low-cycle fatigue into the mooring chain life prediction. To develop the critical plane approach, the multiaxial stress-strain states are extracted for the critical plane at the fatigue hotspot from a finite element model of a mooring chain. This is then correlated with a fatigue life prediction provided by conventional fatigue design data. It uses a simulation of an FPSO as a case study to demonstrate the importance of low cycle fatigue, which shows that the mean load effect is significant in reducing the fatigue life for mooring chain applications, while the effect of fatigue damage-induced cyclic plasticity is limited. The fatigue damage accumulation predicted by the critical plane approach is significantly higher than that of the traditional SN approach and should be accounted for in mooring line design.     

Fracture mechanics analysis for mooring chain links subjected to out-of-plane bending (OPB)

A fracture mechanics (FM) based investigation on the mechanism of out-of-plane bending (OPB) between mooring chain links and its effects on fatigue lives of mooring chain links are conducted. Four types of OPB problems that mooring chain links laying on the chain wheel, chain links passing over the bending shoe, chain links constraint provided by the chain hawse, and chain links constraint provided by the chain stopper are considered. Tension ranges of mooring lines are calculated based on the combined loading process induced by the motions of wave frequency (WF) and low frequency (LF). Initial cracks are assumed to propagate from surfaces of chain links and stress intensity factors are calculated in terms of stress ranges determined by a finite element (FE) analysis. The results show that fatigue lives of mooring chain links are decreased significantly due to OPB effects. In addition, the increase of the number of pockets of chain wheel mitigates OPB effects on fatigue lives of mooring chain links laying on the chain wheel, and the increase of the track diameter would reduce OPB effects on fatigue lives of mooring chain links passing over the bending shoe as well. However, for chain links constraint provided by the chain hawse, the diameter of mooring chain hawse has no significant effect on fatigue lives of the mooring chain links subject to OPB if without the abrupt change of the contact conditions between chain links and chain hawse. For mooring links constraint provided by chain stoppers considering the effect of proof loading test, fatigue lives of mooring chain links would drop significantly with the increase of interlink angles and friction coefficient.     

On the importance of mooring system parametrisation for accurate floating structure designs

This paper analyses the importance of mooring design parametrisation on the dynamic behaviour of mooring loads. An exhaustive sensitivity analysis is performed to evaluate the variability of mooring loads because of inaccuracies in the definition of model inputs, including physical and numerical parameters. Results show a relevant dependence on the length and significance in other parameters, such as the weight together with the hydrodynamic equivalent diameter and the drag forces. An inaccuracy below 1% in the mooring reference length can generate loads of up to twice the design, and an incorrect definition of the weight or the drag coefficient in the mooring design can lead to a design load variability of up to 30%. Stiffness plays a crucial role in snap events, reaching load differences of 19% depending on the stiffness selected.This research is based on a set of numerical models capable of predicting the mooring system response. A dynamic numerical model with two schemes of resolution is implemented and calibrated according to an experimental test campaign. Other sources of results provided by a quasi-static model and commercial software, Sesam (DNV-GL), are incorporated. In general, the dynamic numerical models show a good accuracy with an experimental database composed by a set of 2D prescribed movement tests at the fairlead of the mooring system.     

系泊系统非线性恢复力研究及其应用(英文)

Mooring system plays an important role in station keeping of floating offshore structures.Coupled analysis on mooring-buoy interactions has been increasingly studied in recent years.At present,chains and wire ropes are widely used in offshore engineering practice.On the basis of mooring line statics,an explicit formulation of single mooring chain/wire rope stiffness coefficients and mooring stiffness matrix of the mooring system were derived in this article,taking into account the horizontal restoring force,vertical restoring force and their coupling terms.The nonlinearity of mooring stiffness was analyzed,and the influences of various parameters,such as material,displacement,pre-tension and water depth,were investigated.Finally some application cases of the mooring stiffness in hydrodynamic calculation were presented.Data shows that this kind of stiffness can reckon in linear and nonlinear forces of mooring system.Also,the stiffness can be used in hydrodynamic analysis to get the eigenfrequency of slow drift motions.     

我国战略石油储备船系泊系统安全性评估

用失效概率来评估系泊系统的安全性,是衡量储油系统是否安全的重要手段之一.本文提出了考虑防波堤遭受破坏状况下计算系泊系统失效的数值模拟方法,用时域系泊模拟法求解储油船运动方程并对系泊系统进行了可靠性分析.模拟结果表明,系泊系统的年可靠性为0.999998.所提出的方法能有效地对超大型浮式储油船系泊系统进行定量的安全评估.     

单点系泊系统设备故障分析及对策

以单点系泊系统设备事故分析各部件发生事故的频率、已发生设备损坏事故的部位和重要部件.分析影响设备损坏事故发生的因素,提出设备损坏事故的防范措施.     

A simplified method for reliability- and integrity-based design of engineering systems and its application to offshore mooring systems

This paper presents a simplified method for the reliability- and the integrity-based optimal design of engineering systems and its application to offshore mooring systems. The design of structural systems is transitioning from the conventional methods, which are based on factors of safety, to more advanced methods, which require calculation of the failure probability of the designed system for each project. Using factors of safety to account for the uncertainties in the capacity (strength) or demands can lead to systems with different reliabilities. This is because the number and arrangement of components in each system and the correlation of their responses could be different, which could affect the system reliability. The generic factors of safety that are specified at the component level do not account for such differences. Still, using factors of safety, as a measure of system safety, is preferred by many engineers because of the simplicity in their application. The aim of this paper is to provide a simplified method for design of engineering systems that directly involves the system annual failure probability as a measure of system safety, concerning system strength limit state. In this method, using results of conventional deterministic analysis, the optimality factors for an integrity-based optimal design are used instead of generic safety factors to assure the system safety. The optimality factors, which estimate the necessary change in average component capacities, are computed especially for each component and a target system annual probability of system failure using regression models that estimate the effect of short and long term extreme events on structural response. Because in practice, it is convenient to use the return period as a measure to quantify the likelihood of extreme events, the regression model in this paper is a relationship between the component demands and the annual probability density function corresponding to every return period. This method accounts for the uncertainties in the environmental loads and structural capacities, and identifies the target mean capacity of each component for maximizing its integrity and meeting the reliability requirement. In addition, because various failure modes in a structural system can lead to different consequences (including damage costs), a method is introduced to compute optimality factors for designated failure modes. By calculating the probability of system failure, this method can be used for risk-based decision-making that considers the failure costs and consequences. The proposed method can also be used on existing structures to identify the riskiest components as part of inspection and improvement planning. The proposed method is discussed and illustrated considering offshore mooring systems. However, the method is general and applicable also to other engineering systems. In the case study of this paper, the method is first used to quantify the reliability of a mooring system, then this design is revised to meet the DNV recommended annual probability of failure and for maximizing system integrity as well as for a designated failure mode in which the anchor chains are the first components to fail in the system.     

Numerical modelling of hydrodynamic responses of Ocean Farm 1 in waves and current and validation against model test measurements

With the continuous growing of the aquaculture industry and increasingly limited fish farming sites at close to shore areas both in Norway and worldwide, there is a need to develop fish farms suitable for aquaculture production in typical offshore environments. For this purpose, SALMAR has developed and deployed the Ocean Farm 1 facility for offshore fish farming.The main purpose of this paper is to develop a reliable numerical model and investigate the motion responses of the Ocean Farm 1 structure in waves and current. The established numerical model consists of the Ocean Farm 1's frame structure (with rigidly-connected circular column components), the net and the mooring system. The hydrodynamic external loads and coefficients of the frame structure are obtained by using potential flow theory. The quadratic drag load on the individual circular columns of the frame structure is formulated by a given drag coefficient. The loads on the net are formulated by using the screen model, where the Reynold number dependent lift and drag forces are formulated as a function of the solidity ratio Sn of the net, relative inflow angle and velocity. The hydrodynamic loads on the mooring lines are formulated using the Morison's equation and the structural responses of the mooring lines are obtained using a nonlinear FE model.With the developed numerical model, time domain simulations are performed. The simulation results are firstly validated against measured data from the decay tests, current tests, and regular wave tests. After the validation, numerical simulations are performed in different irregular wave and current combined weather conditions and the obtained motion response of Ocean Farm 1 are discussed and compared with available measurement data.     

不同系泊模式LNG旁靠超大型FSRU系泊系统设计及水动力性能分析

本文采用规范设计、理论分析和数值仿真相结合的方法,建立LNG船与LNG-FSRU两船旁靠系泊的理论和数值分析模型,对LNG旁靠FSRU码头系泊和软钢臂单点系泊两种典型系泊模式下的转运及卸载作业进行数值分析.同时考虑外部海洋环境风、浪、流组合作用下的综合作业工况,确定FSRU与LNG近距离旁靠作业时系泊设备、缆绳种类、固定式和漂浮式护舷的选型和布置,对LNG、FSRU船的运动特性以及运动过程中缆绳张力和护舷受力开展统计分析,优化系泊系统布置和参数.在系泊系统设计和分析的基础上,根据系泊缆的直径、所受最大张力值,为系泊设备选型提供参考,便于开展码头系泊系统和单点系泊系统布置研究.基于旁靠系泊的设计标准提出LNG-FSRU安全作业的最大允许海况,为LNG-FSRU的运营提供可靠的技术保障.     

Development of interlink wear estimation method for mooring chain of floating structures: Validation and new approach using three-dimensional contact response

Long-term operation of mooring systems is one of the challenging issues of floating structures such as floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs). For integrity assessment, fatigue and its affecting factors have generated considerable recent research interest as the occurrence of a large number of mooring chain failures at a high rate has been reported. By contrast, only few studies on the effect of nonuniform volume loss of mooring chain links due to wear can be found because of difficulties to estimate wear amounts quantitatively. Considering this issue, in this paper, validation of the quantitative interlink wear estimation method is investigated by applying to a spar-type floating structure. Firstly, the method is presented which consists of the material test, derivation of an interlink wear estimation formula with FE analysis, and calculation of mooring chain response with coupled dynamic analysis using a mass-spring model. To improve insufficient accuracy due to the mass-spring model around a clump weight and the touchdown point, the method is further modified by using a 3-D rigid-body link model. The estimation results and comparison show that the modified method distinguishing between rolling and sliding can calculate the interlink wear amount closer to the chain diameter measurements and more reasonable than the method using the conventional mass-spring model.     

考虑防波堤失效状况的超大型海洋浮式储油船系泊系统安全性评估

本文首先阐述了建立我国战略石油储备的必要性,选取了超大型浮式储油船作为海上石油储备方式.系泊系统是整个海上储油系统中最重要的设施,对系泊系统的概念、分析、设计和可靠性等作了较详细的描述.用失效概率来评估系泊系统的安全性,是衡量储油系统是否安全的重要手段之一.文中提出了考虑防波堤遭受破坏状况下计算系泊系统失效的数值模拟方法,用时域系泊模拟法求解储油船运动方程并对系泊系统进行了可靠性分析.模拟结果表明,系泊系统的年可靠性为0.999 997.所提出的方法能有效地对超大型浮式储油船系泊系统进行定量的安全评估.     

基于系泊静态相似的超大型浮体单模块系泊系统简化

由多个模块组成的超大型浮体,其系泊系统中的锚链数量会随着模块数量的增加而显著上升。对这样的多模块超大型浮体进行模型试验时,过多的锚链会增加系泊系统的系统误差,增加系泊系统的预张力调节难度。因此,合理地简化系泊系统,减少锚链数量十分必要。本文提出了一种基于静态等效的系泊系统简化方法,将系泊系统的静态等效转化为多目标优化问题,以初始系泊系统与简化系泊系统的水平静回复力和艏摇恢复力矩等效作为目标函数,利用非支配排序遗传算法(NSGA-Ⅱ)求得最优的简化锚链参数,并对使用简化系泊系统的超大型浮体的运动响应进行模拟。通过对比使用简化前后系泊系统运动响应时历的相关性系数,证明对于本文中所使用的浅水悬链式系泊系统,基于静态等效对其进行数量精减并保证浮体的运动响应变化较小是可行的。同时,浮体本身的特性对锚链系统简化的最终效果存在着一定影响。     

中国南海ASDD深水试验井中的锚泊设计与作业(英文)

Mooring systems play an important role for semi-submersible rigs that drill in deepwater.A detailed analysis was carried out on the mooring of a semi-submersible rig that conducted a trial well drilling at a deepwater location in the South China Sea in 2009.The rig was 30 years old and had a shallow platform with a designed maximum operating water depth of 457 m.Following the mooring analysis,a mooring design was given that requires upgrading of the rig’s original mooring system.The upgrade included several innovations,such as installing eight larger anchors,i.e.replacing the original anchors and inserting an additional 600 m of steel wires with the existing chains.All this was done to enhance the mooring capability of the rig in order for the rig to be held in position to conduct drilling at a water depth of 476 m.The overall duration of the drilling was 50 days and the upgraded mooring system proved to be efficient in achieving the goal of keeping the rig stationary while it was drilling the trial well in the South China Sea.This successful campaign demonstrates that an older semi-submersible rig can take on drilling in deep water after careful design and proper upgrading and modification to the original mooring system.     

超大型油船双壳舷侧结构的碰撞性能研究

应用非线性有限元数值仿真方法研究了超大型油船双壳舷侧结构的碰撞性能，分析了各个构件的损伤模式和吸能特性，获得了碰撞力，能量吸收和损伤变形的时序结果，并给出具有指导意义的一般性结论。     

Nonlinear numerical analysis and progressive damage assessment of a cable-stayed bridge pier subjected to ship collision

Despite many studies on barge collisions with girder bridges in the literature, this paper investigates the progressive damage behaviors and nonlinear failure modes of a cable-stayed bridge pier subjected to ship collisions using finite element (FE) simulations in LS-DYNA. The damages in the pier initiate with appearing of local shear failures in the slender columns during the ship collision stage and reach the severe cross-sectional fractures associated with the formation of plastic hinges which causes the combined shear-flexural failures during the free vibration phase of the pier response. In addition, an analytical simplified model with two-degree-of-freedom (2-DOF) is proposed to formulate the strain rate effects of the concrete materials as the dynamic increase factors in the global responses of the impacted pier. It is found that the analytical model is able to efficiently estimate the impact responses of the structure compared to those from the FE high-resolution simulations. Moreover, three different damage indices are proposed based on the pier deflection, the internal energy absorbed by the pier, and the axial load capacity of the pier columns to classify the damage levels of the pier. Finally, an efficient damage index method is determinant by comparing the calculated results with the damage behaviors of the pier observed from the FE simulations.     

Ultimate strength analysis of a bulk carrier hull girder under alternate hold loading condition,Part 2: Stress distribution in the double bottom and simplified approaches

This is the second of two companion papers dealing with nonlinear finite element modelling and ultimate strength analysis of the hull girder of a bulk carrier under Alternate Hold Loading (AHL) condition. The methodology for nonlinear finite element modelling as well as the ultimate strength results from the nonlinear FE analyses was discussed in the companion paper (Part 1). The purpose of the present paper is to use the FE results to contribute towards developing simplified methods applicable to practical design of ship hulls under combined global and local loads. An important issue is the significant double bottom bending in the empty hold in AHL due to combined global hull girder bending moment and local loads. Therefore, the stress distributions in the double bottom area at different load levels i.e. rule load level and ultimate failure load level are presented in detail. The implication of different design pressures obtained by different rules (CSR-BC rules and DNV rules) on the stress distribution is investigated. Both (partially) heavy cargo AHL and fully loaded cargo AHL are considered. Factors of influence of double bottom bending such as initial imperfections, local loads, stress distribution and failure modes on the hull girder strength are discussed. Simplified procedures for determination of the hull girder strength for bulk carriers under AHL conditions are also discussed in light of the FE analyses.     

Full-scale fatigue tests of ship structures to validate the S–N approaches for fatigue strength assessment

Ships belong to those welded structures which are prone to fatigue due to high cyclic loads. Different approaches exist for the fatigue strength assessment which are varying between the industrial sectors. Therefore, deeper fatigue strength investigations were performed in Germany within an industry-wide joint research project aiming at the harmonization of the approaches. Regarding ship structures, two types were selected for full-scale tests. The first concerned web frame corners being typical for roll-on/roll-off ships (ro/ro) ships, from which three models were tested under constant amplitude loading. The second type was the intersection between longitudinals and transverse web frames, which recently showed fatigue failures in containerships. Five models were tested, three under constant and two under variable amplitude loading. All tests showed a relatively long crack propagation phase after first cracks had appeared, calling for a reasonable failure criterion. For the numerical analysis, the structural hot-spot stress as well as the effective notch stress approach have been applied. The latter allows the consideration of the weld shape which could partly explain differences in the observed and calculated failure behaviour. Another factor is the distribution of welding-induced residual stresses, which obviously affected the failure behaviour in the web frame corner as well. Insofar the investigations give a good insight into the strength behaviour of complex welded structures and into current problems and opportunities offered by numerical analyses.     

深水作业船锚索锚泊性能研究

为了探索深水作业船的锚索锚泊性能,运用悬乖线理论分析了钢索和复合锚索的无因次长度、重量与位能,推导出了钢索和复合锚索位能对外力导数的公式,从锚索静载荷角度研究了钢索和复合锚索吸收动载荷的能力.模拟计算结果表明,与钢索相比,复合锚索对增加卧底锚索重量、保持锚的稳定性和抓力是有利的,对减小锚泊船漂移范围也有益处,但吸收动载荷能力下降.复合锚索中设置的锚链的长度取1节(27.5 m)为宜,锚泊时甲板以下锚索长度以2.5～3.0倍水深较为合适.此结论对深水作业船的锚泊操纵有一定的参考意义.     

非均匀条件下的船舶锚链静力特性快速计算

为探索锚泊船偏荡时船与锚链相互作用问题,开展了非均匀条件下锚链静力特性的快速计算研究。采用分段外推-校正方法计算了锚链张力、顶端倾角、悬垂线形状及长度。通过寻找锚链悬垂线最低点位置以及预估顶端倾角的方法来增加求解速度,实现了快速运算。