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Numerical methodology to model offshore systems composed of slender structures

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Abstract

Subsea systems for oil exploitation and renewable offshore energy generally employ cables, hoses, risers, umbilical and power energy cables, mooring lines, among other slender components. From the global modeling perspective, all such “lines” can be well represented by classes of structural models according to phenomena of interest for each analysis—eg.: bending/torsion and/or tension/compression loads. In this context, one is frequently interested in static and dynamic effects. Moreover, geometric nonlinearities, hydrodynamic loads and contact with the seabed can play an important role. The present work proposes a general and robust numerical methodology able to establish and analyze complete offshore systems, composed of numerous lines attached to a floating unit. Catenary, lazy-wave, vertical, or other geometric configurations can be considered for each line. The initial guess for the system configuration is produced by a set of analytical solutions, considering a multi-segment extensible catenary formulation. This is implemented into an in-house numerical finite element framework, which models and solves the statics and dynamics of the system. We employ geometrically exact beam and truss models, handling all external loads of interest and contact interactions with the seabed. Case studies following the proposed methodology are exemplified, discussing details on modeling aspects, such as comparing results with other tools/methodologies.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge Wood Group to provide Flexcom license free of cost, the Office of Naval Research-Global (ONR-G) for the NICOP Award N62909-16-1-2066 and CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico) under the Grants 304321/2021-4 and 305945/2020-3.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Polytechnic School, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Alfredo Gay Neto, Guilherme Rocha Martins, Giovanni Aiosa do Amaral & Guilherme Rosa Franzini

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  1. Alfredo Gay Neto
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  2. Guilherme Rocha Martins
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  3. Giovanni Aiosa do Amaral
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  4. Guilherme Rosa Franzini
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Contributions

A.G.N. contributed to coding, formulations, discussions and writing. G.R.M. contributed to coding, formulations, discussions and writing. G.A.A. contributed to coding, formulations, discussions and writing. G.R.F. contributed to discussions, formulations and writing.

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Correspondence to Alfredo Gay Neto.

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Appendix

Appendix

The methodologies used as benchmarks require some additional data. This appendix brings the values used in our case study.

As mentioned in Sect. 2.4 Gay Neto’s approach uses a horizontal force and an arbitrary time to suspend the line vertically and Antonutti’s proposal prescribes an artificial configuration to next perform a dynamic relaxation. The parameters used in the simulations of Sect. 4.1 are presented in Tables 

Table 9 Additional data to reproduce Gay Neto’s methodology
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9 and

Table 10 Additional data to reproduce Antonutti’s methodology
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10.

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Gay Neto, A., Martins, G.R., do Amaral, G.A. et al. Numerical methodology to model offshore systems composed of slender structures. Arch Appl Mech (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00419-023-02525-x

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