The work described in this paper is part of a research project conducted at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University under the sponsorship of the Offshore Technology Research Center (OTRC). A series of new alternative, platform concepts are being investigated by the offshore industry for deepwater development and production prospects. One concept which is receiving a considerable amount of attention is the Spar Platform, which could also be considered for use in intermediate water depths. The Spar Platform is a deep draft cylindrical hulled platform with a central moonpool. Its design is intended to eliminate first and second order heave forces due to the local seaway environment. The Spar Platform can be secured to the seafloor using a spread mooring system or by a combined tether and mooring system. The surge and pitch motions and the vortex induced motions then become central to engineering design considerations. Interestingly, the Spar concept is fairly insensitive to payload and one design has been shown to be stable enough for direct offloading of oil to a vessel moored to the Spar. In this paper a historical perspective of the Spar Platform is presented first. Methods for analysis and prediction of the spar response are discussed next. Preliminary results from an ongoing study at the OTRC are presented and the predictions from computer simulations are compared among themselves and with experimental data.
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