The motion analysis of floating offshore structures is a major design aspect which has to be considered in the early design stage. The existing design environment E4 is an open software framework, which is being developed by the Institute of Ship Design and Ship Safety, comprising various methods for design and analysis of mainly ship-type structures. In context of the development to enhance the design environment E4 for offshore applications this paper presents a method to calculate the response motions of semi-submersibles in regular waves. The linearised equations of motion are set up in frequency domain in six degrees of freedom and the seakeeping behaviour is calculated in terms of the amplitudes of the harmonic responses. The hydrodynamic forces onto the slender elements of the semi-submersible are accounted for by a Morison approach. As the drag and damping forces depend quadratically on the amplitudes, these forces are linearised by an energy-equivalence principle. The resulting response amplitude operators of the semi-submersible are validated by comparison with model tests. The method represents a fast computational tool for the analysis of the seakeeping behaviour of floating offshore structures consisting of slender elements with circular cross sections in the early design stage.
As a consequence of the planned exit from fossil-based energy in the European Union the exploitation of renewable energies has become a major aspect of the Offshore Industry. Especially the construction and operation of offshore wind energy turbines pose a challenge which is met by the use of jack-up vessels with extendible legs. In order to dimension the vessel’s manoeuvring devices in the early design stage and to ensure a safe jack-up process for given environmental loads the dynamic positioning capability during the jacking including the influence of the legs has to be calculated. As part of the development of a holistic dynamic analysis this paper presents the implementation of the legs’ influence in an existing manoeuvring method. The manoeuvring method solves the equations of motion in three degrees of freedom (surge, sway, yaw). It is based on a force model which comprises various modular components. Therefore another component for the leg-forces is added. A Morison approach is chosen to calculate the hydrodynamic forces on the cylindrical legs. The legs’ hydrodynamic added masses are accounted for and added to the hull’s inertial terms. The benefit of the presented method is the possibility to calculate the dynamic positioning capability with extended legs without being dependent on the results of either time-consuming or non-specific model tests. Therefore the method represents a fast computing tool to design the vessel for the specific environmental conditions of the site of operation.
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