An integrated methodology for the design of mooring systems and risers

摘要

Traditionally, the design of mooring lines and risers of floating production systems (FPS) has been performed separately, by different teams, employing uncoupled analysis tools that do not consider the nonlinear interaction between the platform hull and the mooring lines and risers. Design processes have been focused on fulfilling the design criteria of the respective component (mooring/riser) alone, with few or no consideration to the other component, and little interaction between the design teams. Nowadays the importance of employing analysis tools based on coupled formulations is widely recognized, and analysis strategies have been proposed to consider feedback between mooring lines and risers within their respective design processes. In this context, this work details a proposal of one single and fully integrated design methodology for mooring systems and risers for deep-water FPS. In this methodology, the design stages of both risers and mooring lines are incorporated in a single spiral, allowing the full interaction of different teams; mooring design implicitly considers the riser integrity, and vice-versa, leading to gains in efficiency and cost reduction. Different analysis strategies are employed, taking advantage of uncoupled and coupled numerical models. The models generated at the initial/intermediate design stages can be reused in subsequent stages: simpler models are used in the initial stages, and more refined models are gradually introduced, to reach an ideal balance between computational cost and accuracy of results. In the advanced stages, the exchange of information between mooring/ riser also allows the definition of criteria for the selection of governing/critical loading cases to be revised and verified in detail. This leads to the reduction of the original loading case matrix, allowing a feasible use of time-consuming fully coupled analysis. Results of a case study illustrating the application of some of the main processes of the methodology are included.