The azimuth thruster is mainly installed on a vessel that requires a dynamic positioning (DP) function for special purposes. When the azimuth thruster on a vessel operates for DP, the thrust loss is induced by the thruster-hull interaction. This study examined the influence of boundary conditions in numerical simulations for predicting thrust loss. Wind turbine installation vessels (WTIV) and floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) were chosen as a target vessels. In this study, two types of boundaries were defined. The first consideration is that the boundary condition was assigned with consideration of the azimuth angle of the thruster, whereas it is fixed regardless azimuth angle of the thruster. The predicted thrust loss according to these boundary conditions showed a difference. This observation originated from the current load of the vessel. Therefore, the boundary conditions for which the current load is not induced need to be designated to obtain a realistic thrust loss in a numerical simulation.
In this study, the optimal design of a mooring system was carried out. Unlike almost all design methods, which are based on the deterministic method, this study focused on the probabilistic method. The probabilistic method, especially the design of experiment (DOE), could be a good way to cover some of the drawbacks of the deterministic approach. There various parameters for a mooring system, as widely known, including the weight, length, and stiffness of line. Scenarios for the mooring system parameters were produced using the Latin Hypercube Sampling method of the probabilistic approach. Next, a vessel-mooring system coupled analysis was performed in Orcaflex. A total of 50 scenarios were used in this study to optimize the initial design by means of a genetic algorithm. Finally, after determining the optimal process, a reliability analysis was performed to understand the system validity.
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