Experimental investigation into the effects of air pockets on wave-in-deck loads of offshore structures

In this paper, air entrapment during slamming is an investigation subjected to an experimental method of inquiry, analysed alongside a theoretical approach obtained from previous attempts to address similar matters. The experiment consisted of assembling three different sizes and depths of artificially created pockets underneath the 1:75 deck model of a 76 m × 76 m prototype to encourage air entrapment and study how this entrapped air affects local and global loads. A parametric study is ultimately conducted on the geometry of the pocket, altering area and depth to observe the response to the pressure. Air entrapment effects were observed to reduce the magnitudes of impact pressure inside the pocket while slightly altering the force time histories in x and z-directions. Force magnitudes for global forces are significantly close to the smooth deck results. However, horizontal force data are slightly higher than their corresponding smooth deck due to additional surfaces inside the pocket. In addition, a parametric study of the depth and size of the pocket reveals that pocket depth is the dominant parameter that affects the impact pressure inside a pocket.     

Numerical investigation on the ultimate strength behaviour and assessment of continuous hull plate under combined biaxial cyclic loads and lateral pressure

The ultimate strength of continuous hull plate under combined biaxial cyclic loads and lateral pressure is investigated in the present paper by using nonlinear finite element method. Geometric nonlinearity due to large deflection and material nonlinearity induced by kinematic hardening and isotropic hardening are both accounted for. A parametric study is designed and completed to examine the longitudinal ultimate compressive strength behaviours in the cycles on the basis of a large number of load-shortening curves. Effects of series of parameters especially the plate slenderness ratio, transverse cyclic compression, lateral pressure and cycle number are analyzed with details. It is found that the strength characteristic and collapse mode are highly affected by the coupling influence of the mentioned factors as well material behaviours. A dimensionless unified formulation as a function of the decisive factors is empirically proposed to accurately assess the ultimate strength of continuous hull plate in various cycles.     

Accelerated second-order hydrodynamic load calculation on semi-submersible floaters

A rapid method for calculation of second-order hydrodynamic wave loads on semi-submersible platforms is developed and validated against radiation–diffraction theory. The method is based on slender-body theory and builds on modal truncation of the quadratic transfer function (QTF). The semi-submersible floater is split into individual members and the existing theory for vertical cylindrical columns is extended to include the heave force. Further expressions for the surge, heave and pitch load on the horizontal pontoons are derived and implemented. The accuracy of the method is assessed by comparison to radiation–diffraction results using the Pinkster approximation. We find that the slender-body approximation for the column surge force is most accurate for small values of the diameter-to-draft ratio. For the three sea states considered, this error is below 10% for diameter-to-draft ratios less than 0.2.Error analysis is provided for the column heave and pitch and the pontoon loads. For all members, application of 128 modes in the QTF approximation is found sufficient to accurately represent the full slender-body QTF solution.Next, the first- and second-order loads on the full floater under different sea state conditions are compared to radiation–diffraction theory. With 128 modes, the second-order loads are obtained 2500 times faster than with conventional approaches with error levels of 22% for surge, 10% for pitch and zero error for heave. The surge error is discussed and linked to the small draft of the columns. The numerical efficiency of the method allows the consideration of second-order loads in the first stages of the design and optimisation of semi-submersible floaters.     

Characteristics of gas explosion loads and structural responses of blast wall on FPSO

Gas explosions generally cause catastrophic damage to surrounding structures and humans. The application of blast wall can effectively prevent the damage. The uniform explosion load is widely used in assessing structural response, but it cannot represent the non-uniform characteristic of actual explosion pressures. The main contents of this paper are to study the effect of gas cloud characteristics on explosion pressure distribution, and analyze the effect of non-uniform loads on structural responses. The results reveal that the explosion loads have strongly spatial inhomogeneous when explosion scenarios have large sized cloud or long combustion distance. By establishing the overpressure-probability exceedance curves for uniform loading method and distributed loading method, based on the given accident frequency several design loads are determined. The structural responses of blast wall under design loads are assessed based on explosion evaluation acceptance criteria. It can be seen that the use of uniform loading method underestimates the structural response and misjudges the deformation pattern compared to actual explosion loads. Global and local explosion pressures should be considered simultaneously in the design specification. The overpressure-probability exceedance curves for non-uniform explosion pressures are recommended to establish the design load for blast wall.     

Analysis of ultimate uniaxial compressive strength of stiffened panel considering influence of shear load北大核心CSCD

［Objective］This study aims to explore the law of the critical compression stress of stiffened panels under the influence of in-plane shear load, and whether in-plane shear load combined with lateral pressure will introduce a strong coupling effect. ［Method ］ To this end, nonlinear finite element (FE) software ABAQUS is used to perform numerical simulation analysis under combined loads on a group of FE models. A limit state equation/curve is then derived from the dimensionless calculation results based on the minimum square error method. ［Results］The results show that the influence law of in-plane shear load on the critical compression stress of stiffened panels is clarified, and a limit state equation of stiffened panels that considers the effect of shear load is obtained. ［Conclusion］The limit state equation in this paper can provide references for modifying the ultimate strength of stiffened panels under the influence of in-plane shear load. © 2023 Chinese Journal of Ship Research. All rights reserved.     

Uncertainty analysis of extreme mooring loads associated with environmental contours and peak tension distributions

This paper aims to assess the uncertainty on the extreme mooring loads of floating system considering short-term variability. Two environmental contour approaches based on the inverse First and Second Order Reliability Methods are employed to identify critical sea states that may give rise to extreme loads. The uncertainty related to the construction of environmental contours is addressed including significant differences due to marginal distribution fitting, parameter estimation methods and joint models. Three measured datasets are analysed using a known conditional joint distribution and proposed mixed copula model. 3-h time domain numerical simulation for each sea state is conducted and the characteristic extreme responses of mooring lines subjected to design loads are assessed. The uncertainties due to various statistical models including the average conditional exceedance rate method as well as global maxima, peak-over-threshold method combined with Gumbel distribution, Generalized Extreme Value distribution, Generalized Pareto distribution and 3-parameter Weibull distribution are investigated and quantified. It is observed that marginal distributions, joint models and parameters estimation methods have apparent effect on design loads estimation, and the extreme tensions of the semi-submersible platform shows significant difference using various probabilistic models. The results indicate that those epistemic uncertainties should be account for in the reliability analysis or safety factor calibration for mooring systems.     

Stress concentration factors in FRP-reinforced tubular DKT joints under axial loads

The stress concentration factors (SCFs) in uniplanar fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) DKT joints are calculated under five axial loading conditions to determine the maximum SCFs. To this end, 108 finite element models of reinforced DKT joints with different FRPs and geometrical parameters are analysed. Available experimental data and formulas are used to validate the finite element models. The validated finite element models are utilized to investigate the effects of the FRP parameters along with different geometrical parameters on the stress concentration factors in uniplanar DKT joints. The simulations show a reduction of the maximum SCF by around 40% compared to unreinforced DKT joints. The reduction effect increases significantly with increasing the FRP thickness and the number of layers. Despite the notable efficacy of the FRP sheets on the drop of the SCFs in the X-connections, there is not any study or equation on the X-joints with FRP. Therefore, a precise equation is proposed for quantifying the SCFs in X-connections with FRP and is checked against the UK DoE acceptance standard.     

Required test durations for converged short-term wave and impact extreme value statistics — Part 1: Ferry dataset

For the design of maritime structures in waves, the extreme values of responses such as motions and wave impact loads are required. Waves and wave-induced responses are stochastic, so such responses should always be related to a probability. This information is not easy to obtain for strongly non-linear responses such as wave impact forces. Usually class rules or direct assessment via experiments or numerical simulations are applied to obtain extreme values for design. This brings up questions related to the convergence of extreme values: how long do we need to test in order to obtain converged statistics for the target duration? Or, vice versa: given testing data, what is the uncertainty of the associated statistics? Often the test or simulation duration is cut up in ‘seeds’ or ‘realisations’, with an exposure duration of one or three hours based on the typical duration of a steady environmental condition at sea, or the time that a ship sails a single course. The required number of seeds for converged results depends on the type of structure and response, the exposure duration, and the desired probability level. The present study provides guidelines for the convergence of most probable maximum (MPM) wave crest heights and MPM green water wave impact forces on a ferry. Long duration experiments were done to gain insight into the required number of seeds, and the effect of fitting. The present paper presents part 1 of this study; part 2 [1] presents similar results for wave-in-deck loads on a stationary deck box.     

Required test durations for converged short-term wave and impact extreme value statistics–Part 2: Deck box dataset

In the assessment of wave-in-deck loads for new and existing maritime structures typically model tests are carried out. To determine the most critical conditions and measure sufficient impact loads, a range of sea states and various seeds (realisations) for each sea state are tested. Based on these measurements, probability distributions can be derived and design loads determined. In air gap model testing usually only few, if any, impact loads occur per 3-hour seed. This can make it challenging to derive reliable probability distributions of the measured loads, especially when only a few seeds are generated. In addition wave impact forces, such as greenwater loading, slamming, or air gap impacts are typically strongly non-linear, resulting in a large variability of the measured loads. This results in the following questions: How many impacts are needed to derive a reliable distribution? How is the repeatability of individual events affecting the overall distribution? To answer these questions wave-in-deck model tests were carried out in 100 x 3-hour realisations of a 10,000 year North Sea sea state. The resulting probability distributions of the undisturbed wave measurements as well as the measured wave-in-deck loads are presented in this paper with focus on deriving the number of seeds and exposure durations required for a reliable estimate of design loads.The presented study is Part 2 of a combined study on guidance for the convergence and variability of wave crests and impact loading extreme values. The data set of Part 1 ([1]) is based on greenwater loads on a sailing ferry and the data set of Part 2 on wave-in-deck loads on a stationary deck box.