Fatigue analysis on the mooring chain of a spread moored FPSO considering the OPB and IPB

摘要

The appropriate design of a mooring system to maintain the position of an offshore structure in deep sea under various environmental loads is important. Fatigue design of the mooring line considering OPB/IPB(out-of-plane bending/in-plane bending) became an essential factor after the incident of premature fatigue failure of the mooring chain due to OPB/IPB in the Girassol region in West Africa. In this study, mooring line fatigue analysis was performed considering the OPB/IPB of a spread moored FPSO in deep sea. The tension of the mooring line was derived by hydrodynamic analysis using the de-coupled analysis method. The floater motion time histories were calculated under the assumption that the mooring line behaves in quasi-static manner. Additional time domain analysis was carried out by prescribing the obtained motions on top of the selected critical mooring line, which was determined based on spectral fatigue analysis. In addition, nonlinear finite element analysis was performed considering the material nonlinearities, and both the interlink stiffness and stress concentration factors were derived. The fatigue damage to the chain surface was estimated by combining both the hydrodynamic and stress analysis results.