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Ocean Engineering 33 (2006) 16441668 www.elsevier.com/locate/oceaneng

Assessment of the effect of mooring systems on the horizontal motions with an equivalent force to model
R. Pascoala, S. Huangb, N. Barltropb, C. Guedes Soaresa,
cnico, Unit of Marine Technology and Engineering, Technical University of Lisbon, Instituto Superior Te Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049-001 Lisboa, Portugal b Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde, UK Received 12 February 2005; accepted 21 September 2005 Available online 18 January 2006
a

Abstract The present work was carried out to assess the performance of an equivalent force model for the rapid analysis of mooring lines subject to horizontal motions. The verication is performed for cases of practical interest. Due to the very distinct behaviour of slack, moderately slack and taught moorings, these are analysed separately and the variation in the model coefcients is justied. It is shown that the methodology provides reasonable estimates of the mooring line behaviour. The nal equation is very simple to introduce into a vessel motion program and is also thought to be useful in controller design or stability analysis. r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Nonlinear mooring model; Equivalent force; Slow drift motion

1. Introduction The inclusion of fully dynamic cable analysis into an existing code for vessel hydrodynamics may turn out to be a difcult task due to mismatch of the relevant
Corresponding author.

E-mail address: guedess@mar.ist.utl.pt (C. Guedes Soares). 0029-8018/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.oceaneng.2005.09.005

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Nomenclature CDn, CDt normal and tangential drag coefcients E Youngs modulus g gravitational acceleration (9.81 m s2) H water depth HD horizontal distance from anchor to fairlead m cable mass per unit arc length T0 initial tension at the fairlead of each cable when at static mean position

time scales (e.g. Leonard et al., 2000). Furthermore, the code may become quite inefcient in terms of calculation time. If model based controllers or the stability of a system are being analysed, then it is good to have low order approximations, as the inclusion of a fully dynamic cable dynamics formulation will usually be too complex for real time operation or analytic studies. Several simplied solutions to estimate the forces due to mooring lines have been published, with special attention given to the mooring line damping. Most of the methods rely on use of a quasi-static solution and possibly perturbation analysis. Banduin and Naciri (2000), for instance, give some discussion on mooring line damping, comparing their results with those of other authors. Pascoal et al. (2005) have proposed a somewhat different methodology because it is designed to provide an equivalent force model containing all the relevant terms. It is based on the assumption that the force is differentiable with respect to position, velocity and acceleration. The physical reason for writing force as a function of these variables is that then it is naturally expressed as stiffness, damping and mass terms that are easier to interpret as the changes in the variables tend to very small amplitudes about a mean position, in which case they will reduce to those of a linear mass-spring-damper system. A Taylor expansion, containing terms with the relevant variables, is used in conjunction with a simple system identication procedure. The solution is linear in the coefcients and the identication scheme is based on a least squares criterion and closely resembles one of the procedures used to determine hydrodynamic derivatives from manoeuvrability tests. In this paper, the methodology proposed by Pascoal et al. (2005), and the resulting model for the effect of a mooring system on the horizontal forces, are assessed by using it to provide the coefcients of the Taylor expansion for signicantly different mooring systems. The difference in mooring behaviour is most noticed as load-carrying shifts from an almost purely geometric balance to a strain driven equilibrium. There are three very distinct behaviours that correspond to a slack, moderately slack and a taught cable geometry. The slack moor has the possibility to geometrically change and that is its response to different loads. The moderately slack moor crosses from a purely

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geometric to a partially elastic load-carrying mode. The taught moor has an almost pure elastic load-carrying mode. The moderately slack moorings were expected to be the most troublesome when simplied modelling is considered and indeed presented itself as such due to the shift from a geometric to an elastic response. The low order model provides only acceptable results for this case. Anyhow, in real application, this is probably the least-favoured load-carrying mode because it leads to lower fatigue life, snap loading of the cables, etc. The ease of including the resulting model into a vessel dynamics program is achieved by its algebraic equation form. Once implemented, it allows long runs with multiple dynamic mooring lines to be used when calculating the statistics of mooring line dynamic tensions and vessel dynamic response.

2. Theoretical background According to Newtonian mechanics, any external force applied at a given point in a system, with given physical properties, has a reaction that is function of relative motions of the system constituents and their time derivatives up to second order. For a one-dimensional motion, this is symbolically expressed as _ F F x; x; x. (1)

The idea is to nd F to sufciently high order only for the force at the fairlead of a mooring system such that they may be determined without having to solve the full differential equations for each run of a vessel dynamics code or if some approximation is to be found for analysis of stability or controller design for instance. To make such an approximation, the usual Taylor expansion of (1) is considered about some equilibrium static position for the fairlead, without loss of generality considered to be the origin.  N X1 q q q n _ F x x x F RN . (2) _ 0 n! qx qx qx ~ n0 Only congurations with symmetric response will be considered and thus only odd powers are of interest. Eq. (2) can be written in the form of a polynomial with unknown coefcients and with some of them collected to better establish a relation with the cable behaviour. For N 3 this is represented as: _ _ F a1 a6 x2 a8 x2 x a3 a5 x2 a11 x2 x _ _ _ a4 a7 x2 a10 x2 x a2 x3 a9 x3 a12 x3 a13 xxx. 3 The coefcients will be used throughout the paper and have to be identied using some system identication procedure. One of the problems with cable systems is that they can become completely slack and kink, but this behaviour is just as unwanted in the identication process of a mooring system as for instance the saturation of mechanical actuators in a chemical power plant (see for instance Braun et al., 2000)

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or of electronic components (e.g. Godfrey, 1993). It was in electronics that special phase relations for the sum of sine waves were discovered to produce signals with the same energy as any random phase signal, but having smaller maximum excursions. For a at spectrum, i.e. one with the same spectral energy density in all of its bandwidth, the phases satisfying the minimum peak-to-peak excursion are know as Schroeder phases (Schroeder, 1970). There are immediately two possible ways to identify the derivatives; by exciting the top with a known force and to record the motions, or vice-versa. The application of known motions is easier and more intuitive to perform. The fairlead point has to be moved according to some law so that a relationship between the kinematics and the force may be found. Here it was chosen to have a slow drift motion that encompasses the maximum estimated value plus a wave frequency motion spectrum synthesized using Schroeder-phased sum of sine waves. Schroeder phases can thus be used to excite the fairlead point at wave frequency, and the excursions due wave frequency motion will have limited maximum amplitude while all the energy will be still present. This is a desired situation because the taught slack behaviour and kinking are reduced to a minimum and the identication is carried out using a high-energy signal. The multi-sine is written as (Godfrey 1993, p. 134): xt
Nf X p 2Pi cos2pf i ji i1

(4)

P while Schroeder phases are dened as ji 2p ij1 jPj , or for at energy density: p ji i2 . (5) N The highest power of the expansion in (2), the number of harmonics in (4) and the identication procedure have to be chosen. Here, terms up to the fth order have been considered, and the number of harmonics was chosen to be 161, because it gives a fundamental frequency of 0.0125 Hz when the wave frequencies range 0.050.25 Hz (typical bandwidth of wave frequency motion), thus allowing for 800 s of simulation without repetition, which was determined to be sufcient for this application. The identications have been carried out using linear least square t (e.g., Kalaba and Spingarn 1982, pp. 165169). The procedure is fully documented by Pascoal et al. (2005).

3. Numerical examples Arrangements with very distinct behaviour are presented as examples to assess the predictive capacity of the model. The model is subject to different types of excitations in order to reduce the probabilities of the results being a coincidence. The properties common to all the mooring arrangements are: H 400 m, cable length 1200 m, line diameter 0.103 m, m 44:0 kg=m, C Dn 1:2, C Dt 0:01, E 4:0 1010 N=m2 . The initial properties that differ in the arrangements are given in Table 1.

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Table 1 Properties of the mooring arrangement Slack HD [m] T 0 =mgH 1080 2.44 Moderately slack 1110 3.94 Taught 1140 15.3

Table 2 Matrix of performed runs, the code used for cross-reference, and their main parameters Slow drift parameters Period [s] 100 200 Amplitude [m] 20 40 40 Conguration Slack S10020 S10040 S20040 Moderately slack MS10020 MS10040 MS20040 Taught T10020 T10040 T20040

The test matrix, with the corresponding code used to refer to the set of results, is represented in Table 2. The 20 and 40 m amplitudes correspond to 5% and 10% of the water depth, respectively. The 100 and 200 s periods are considered to be representative of the periods of slow motion encountered in practice. The taut line conguration gives loads that cannot be sustained by single line but is given for comparison of qualitative behaviour. 3.1. Slack mooring with 20 m drift and 100 s period The symmetric mooring system used to simulate the slack conguration is shown in Fig. 1. In Pascoal et al. (2005), the selection of a signal that is useful in the identication of the unknown coefcients was found to be of the utmost importance. In the gures to follow, Model Force pertains to the one given by the simplied model as described in Pascoal et al. (2005) while Mooring Force is the one obtained from a lumped mass formulation. The coefcients resulting from a multi-tone composed of two sine waves, a multisine and a static analysis are presented in Table 3. In this case, the multi-tone corresponds to a low frequency signal with amplitude modulation and 20 m maximum amplitude plus a single 2 m amplitude wave frequency. The relative error on the restoring coefcients is small; the change of the linear is from 4% when using a single wave frequency (1 WF) to 0.26% with the at spectra multi-sine, and these have been compared with values from a quasi-static formulation approximated to the fth order (Static 5). Using a multi-sine, as may be observed by looking at the pairs such as linear and cubic restoring (corresponding to a1 and a2), linear and cubic

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0 z [m] -200 -400 -1500 -1000 -500 0 x [m] 500 1000 1500

Fig. 1. Symmetric mooring system for simulation.

Table 3 Full estimation of coefcient from the dynamic code with multi-sine a1 1 WF M-Sine Static 5 10530 10939 10968 a10 1 WF M-Sine Static 5 39288.2 1221.8 39288.2 a2 1.327 1.342 1.291 a11 95206 1473.1 95206 a3 96135.8 131643.2 a12 7301.9 49.5 7301.9 a4 32658.1 63818.5 a13 86.2 33.7 86.2 a5 63.8 56.5 a6 36.7 36.1 a7 68.0 40.9 a8 828.7 169.5 a9 81526.1 337.0

damping (a3 and a12), a4 and a9, the higher order terms of the proposed power series have decreasing modulus, which is a sign of possible convergence within a certain subset, while this is not the case when using a multi-tone. In Fig. 2 the power-spectral density of the force response to the Schroeder-phased input is shown. In all gures, the waviness of the spectral density is due mostly to the discrete nature of the excitation spectrum and the absence of smoothing. Although the system may turn out to be strongly nonlinear, spectra are probably the simplest way to compare the response from the model with the parameters obtained from the identication procedure and the one from the cable dynamics program. Next, the predictions to the response from signals of single sinusoids are presented. The signals are given in Table 4 and the results are plotted in Figs. 26. Although there are some fairly large errors in trying to predict the behaviour under larger periods, higher frequencies give good prediction, e.g. Signal 2, and this is mostly due to the damping forces. The regression for the coefcients of the fth order approximation was not problematic. In Table 5, the coefcients that exist in both the third- and fth-order approximations are presented, also added is the fth-order regression of coefcients to the results from a quasi-static formulation. The velocity cubed term, (c10), has been estimated in such a way that it enables predictions that extend to relatively large amplitude wave frequency (which in practice is not important for the case in study). The cubic restoring is different and indicating a slight softening but also not important for this case, the linear restoring relative error is 1.9% and the relative change in linear damping is 5% of the smallest value. There is still indication of a possibly converging power series.

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x 106

Power-Spectral Density of Response Mooring Force Model Force

2.5

2 S (f) [kN2s]

standard deviation from dynamic code = 389.15 kN standard deviation from model = 380.94 kN

1.5

0.5

0.05

0.1

0.15 f [Hz]

0.2

0.25

0.3

Fig. 2. Resulting power-spectral densities from the Schroeder-phased input (not smoothed and zoomed).

Table 4 Matrix of sinusoidal signals to assess the quality of the multi-sine input coefcients Identication Signal Signal Signal Signal 1 2 3 4 Period [s] 100 90 130 100+10 Amplitude [m] 15 20 30 20+2

Good results are obtained if, after estimation, only a3, a4, a7, a8, a11 and linear stiffness are considered. There was no benet from considering fth-order terms; the estimation is actually not as good as for the third order. 3.2. Slack mooring with 40 m drift and 100 s period The system simulated here is exactly the same as the one in S10020, simply the largest amplitude of the slow drift has been changed. The new kinematics are plotted in Fig. 7. The system outputs are plotted in Figs. 8 and 9. It has been shown that the predictive capacity is fairly good under a multi-sine excitation. In order to reduce the number of simulations, which is actually part of the point behind the simplied model, the predictions of this S10040 case to the signals used in S10020 are presented. This is basically a simulation of a situation that we desire will encompass the other. The signal properties are given in Table 6 and the results are plotted in Figs. 1014.

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Model Response 300 Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN] 200

100

-100

-200

-300 100

150

200

250 time [s]

300

350

400

Fig. 3. Model with multi-sine coefcients; prediction under Signal 1.

Model Response 300

200

100

0 Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN] -100

-200

-300

50

100 time [s]

150

200

Fig. 4. Model with multi-sine coefcients; predictions of Signal 2.

Only third-order predictions are shown because fth order was seen to produce no better result. Once more, as may be seen from looking at the response under signal 2, in Fig. 11, the model gives better prediction at higher frequencies. Other examples are given in Figs. 13 and 14.

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Model Response 600

400

200

-200

-400 Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN] -600 0 50 100 time [s] 150 200

Fig. 5. Model with multi-sine coefcients; prediction under Signal 3.

600

Model Response

400

200

-200

-400 Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN] -600 200 250 300 350 time [s] 400 450 500

Fig. 6. Model with multi-sine coefcients; prediction of multi-tone signal, Signal 4.

When small amplitude monochromatic motion, e.g. Signal 1, is imposed, some very large errors occur in estimating the peak value, 40% in this case as may be seen in Fig. 10. This is trying to predict the response of a 15 m motion, having no wave

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R. Pascoal et al. / Ocean Engineering 33 (2006) 16441668 Table 5 Comparison between third and fth-order Taylor coefcients a1 M-Sine 3 M-Sine 5 Static 5 10939 10756 10968 a10 M-Sine 3 M-Sine 5 Static 5 1221.8 398.1 a2 1.342 3.094 1.291 a11 1473.1 1553.1 a3 131643.2 124851.4 a12 49.5 2262.7 a4 a5 a6 36.1 402.7 a7 a8 a9 337.0 974.8 1653

63818.5 56.5 50994.4 11.3 a13 33.7 27.0

40.9 169.5 181.9 353.0

Prescribed Top-End Kinematics 50 Offset [m] Acceleration [ms-2] Velocity [ms-1]

-50 200

250

300

350 time [s]

400

450

500

Fig. 7. Imposed kinematics with Schroeder phasing.

frequency components, with a model of 40 m motions possessing wave frequency components. The error is, as anticipated, due mostly to the damping term (Figs. 10 and 12). 3.3. Slack mooring with 40 m drift and 200 s period Now, instead of making new identication for the S20040 cases, which may be considered an established procedure, it will be seen how the S10040 adjusts to the larger slow drift period while maintaining the wave frequency components. These results are presented in Figs. 15 and 16. Only third-order predictions are shown

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Model Response 1500

1000

500

-500

-1000 Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN] -1500 200 250 300 350 time [s] 400 450 500

Fig. 8. Adjustment of the model to the top-end force.

x 106 6

Power-Spectral Density of Response Mooring Force Model Force

4 S (f) [kN2s]

standard deviation from dynamic code = 688.31 kN standard deviation from model = 654.17 kN

0.05

0.1

0.15 f [Hz]

0.2

0.25

0.3

Fig. 9. Power spectral density of the top-end force zoomed to wave frequency component.

because it was seen that fth order gives no signicant enhancement. The result might be classied as being fairly reasonable, with 15.3% relative error in standard deviation and the model giving overestimation. A new identication would be better.

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R. Pascoal et al. / Ocean Engineering 33 (2006) 16441668 Table 6 Signal used for establishing the predictive capacity Identication Signal Signal Signal Signal 1 2 3 5 Period [s] 100 90 130 100+Wave Amplitude [m] 15 20 30 20 m+Schroeder superposition 1655

Model Response 300 Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN] 200

100

-100

-200

-300 100

150

200

250 time [s]

300

350

400

Fig. 10. Prediction of system response under Signal 1.

3.4. Moderately slack mooring with 20 m drift and 100 s period The performance with taughter geometry presented in Fig. 17 is now assessed. The procedure used for identication is considered the same. Thus, only the results are presented and analysed. Fig. 18 shows the power spectral density for the force signal that is obtained from the cable dynamics program and from the simplied model when subject to the Schroeder-phased input used in identication. In Table 7, it is seen that the cubic order restoring, a2, coefcient was changed dramatically by this top 30 m shift in the horizontal distance from fairlead to anchor point (from 1080 m in the previous case to 1110 m). This may be justied by an increase in elastic stiffness and transition of stiffness mechanism, because with an offset of 5 m (1115 m from anchor to fairlead) there is no cable on the bottom and thus less capability for geometric accommodation.

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Model Response 400 300 200 100 0 -100 -200 -300 -400 0 50 100 time [s] 150 200 Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN]

Fig. 11. Prediction of system behaviour under Signal 2.

Model Response 800 600 400 200 0 -200 -400 -600 -800 Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN] 0 50 100 time [s] 150 200

Fig. 12. Prediction of system response under Signal 3.

The prediction under this taughter conguration is not so good. It seems that in relatively slack case there was still some truth to the superposition of wave frequency components and linearity of response. Webster (1995) mentioned that, for a slack conguration, damping coefcients were constant with amplitude; apparently for a slack conguration it also does not vary much within the range of wave frequencies.

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800 600 400 200 0 -200 -400 -600 -800 200 250 300

Model Response

Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN] 350 time [s] 400 450 500

Fig. 13. Prediction of Schroeder-phased 20 m amplitude, Signal 5.

x 106 4.5 4 3.5 S (f) [kN2s] 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0 0.05

Power-Spectral Density of Response Mooring Force Model Force

standard deviation from dynamic code = 389.15 kN standard deviation from model = 439.39 kN

0.1

0.15 f [Hz]

0.2

0.25

0.3

Fig. 14. Power spectral densities of the outputs with Signal 5 excitation.

For the taughter conguration, not much movement is allowed without changing the means of load accommodation from geometric to elastic and a dramatic change in drag as well; this may be the reason for a less capable estimation. In Figs. 19 and 20, the predictions, using the coefcients determined with the spectrum from multi-sine with Schroeder phases, are worst than for a slack case. The

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Model Response 800 600 400 200 0 -200 -400 -600 -800 200 Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN] 250 300 350 time [s] 400 450 500

Fig. 15. Prediction from S10040 model to the signal of S20040.

x 106 4.5 4 3.5 3 S (f) [kN2s] 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 0 0.05

Power-Spectral Density of Response Mooring Force Model Force

standard deviation from dynamic code = 522.1 kN standard deviation from model = 602.11 kN

0.1

0.15 f [Hz]

0.2

0.25

0.3

Fig. 16. Resulting power spectral densities from the S10040 model and S20040 simulation.

signal is a 2 m amplitude 10 s harmonic motion superimposed on a 20 m-amplitude 100 s slow drift. The relative error in standard deviation is 26.5% and the relative error in the peak value (not considering the phase shift) is 33%. For any of the examples shown, the relevant contribution to the nal prediction comes from a3, a4, a8, a9, a10, a11 linear K and cubic K.

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0 Z [m] -200 -400 -1500 -1000 -500 0 x [m] 500 1000 1500

Fig. 17. Simulated moderately slack symmetric mooring.

x 106 9 8 7 S (f) [kN2s] 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0 0.05

Power-Spectral Density of Response Mooring Force Model Force

standard deviation from dynamic code = 887.86 kN standard deviation from model = 818.02 kN

0.1

0.15 f [Hz]

0.2

0.25

0.3

Fig. 18. Power spectral density of response to Schroeder-phased input.

Table 7 Coefcients for a taughter conguration a1 M-Sine 3 M-Sine 5 Static 5 25315 25498 24133 a10 4414.4 3771.6 a2 43.7 25.9 21.0 a11 5795.8 10268.8 a3 233959.6 228166.6 a12 344.0 9237.8 a4 182022.5 179529.4 a13 72.5 201.7 a5 98.1 430.9 a6 234.4 430.2 a7 52.1 715.6 a8 101.4 205.1 a9 3274.3 6372.4

M-Sine 3 M-Sine 5 Static 5

As in previous cases, estimation in SLS should be performed with all terms. After the coefcients are estimated, some may be insignicant and disregarded. A fth-order Taylor series estimation does not render a noticeable improvement upon the third order.

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x 107 15

Power-Spectral Density of Response Mooring Force Model Force

10 S (f) [kN2s]

standard deviation from dynamic code = 833.02 kN standard deviation from model = 669.69 kN

0.05

0.1

0.15 f [Hz]

0.2

0.25

0.3

Fig. 19. Estimated by the fth-order Taylor series.

Model Response 1500

1000

500

-500

-1000 Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN] -1500 0 50 100 150 200 time [s] 250 300 350

Fig. 20. Time trace of Fifth-order prediction.

3.5. Moderately slack with 40 m drift and 100 s period The conguration of the mooring arrangement is the same as for the MS10020, but the slow drift amplitude has been increased to 40 m. New coefcients were determined and the adjustments may be visualized in Figs. 2128.

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Model Response 6000 Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN] 4000

2000

-2000

-4000

-6000 200

250

300

350 time [s]

400

450

500

Fig. 21. Model as during the identication procedure.

x 107

Power-Spectral Density of Response Mooring Force Model Force

1.5 S (f) [kN2s]

standard deviation from dynamic code = 2650.3 kN standard deviation from model = 2577.3 kN

0.5

0.05

0.1

0.15 f [Hz]

0.2

0.25

0.3

Fig. 22. Power spectral densities of the signal and the model as identied.

The signals in Table 8 are used in order to verify the adequacy of the newly determined coefcients. The simulation for MS20040 is also used, but, as before, the new identication is not performed and instead an attempt to predict the behaviour with the MS10040 model.

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Model Response 2000 1500 1000 500 0 -500 -1000 -1500 -2000 Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN] 0 50 100 150 200 time [s] 250 300 350 400

Fig. 23. Prediction of system response to Signal 1.

x 107 7 6 S (f) [kN2s] 5 4 3 2 1 0

Power-Spectral Density of Response Mooring Force Model Force

standard deviation from dynamic code = 833.02 kN standard deviation from model = 877.37 kN

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08 f [Hz]

0.1

0.12

0.14

Fig. 24. Power spectral densities of prediction and response to Signal 1.

The results are plotted in Figs. 2328 and comprise all the coefcients from the third-order approximation. Naturally, if the coefcients were to be identied again, the adjustments would be better, but even with the previous values they are still quite good.

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2000 1500 1000 500 0 -500 -1000 -1500 -2000 200

Model Response

Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN] 250 300 350 time [s] 400 450 500

Fig. 25. Time trace of prediction and response to Signal 2.

x107 2

Power-Spectral Density of Response Mooring Force Model Force

1.5
Standard deviation from dynamic code = 887.86 kN

S(f) [kN2s]

Standard deviation from model = 1036.3 kN

0.5

0 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 f [Hz] 0.2 0.25 0.3

Fig. 26. Power spectral densities of response and prediction under Signal 2.

It is interesting to see that this 40 m model actually predicts the 20 m case of Signal 1 more adequately than with the identication previously performed for up to 20 m situations.

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6000

Model Response

4000

2000

-2000

-4000 Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN] -6000 200 250 300 350 time [s] 400 450 500

Fig. 27. Prediction of MS20040 with the MS10040 model, Signal 3.

x 107 2

Power-Spectral Density of Response Mooring Force Model Force

1.5 S (f) [kN2s] standard deviation from dynamic code = 2300.1 kN standard deviation from model = 2548.1 kN 1

0.5

0.05

0.1

0.15 f [Hz]

0.2

0.25

0.3

Fig. 28. Power spectral densities of MS20040 with the MS10040 model, Signal 3.

3.6. Taught mooring with 20 m drift and 100 s period A taught conguration is analysed next. It will be shown that the behaviour is quite different from that of previously simulated congurations and most likely is a case that may be subject to a reasonable analytic solution even with currents (Fig. 29).

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R. Pascoal et al. / Ocean Engineering 33 (2006) 16441668 Table 8 Signals used to assess validity of the coefcients Identication Signal 1 Signal 2 Signal 3 Period [s] 100 & 10 100+wave 200+wave Amplitude [m] 20 m+2 m 20 m+Schroeder superposition 40 m+Schroeder superposition 1665

0 z [m] -200 -400 -1500 -1000 -500 0 x [m] 500 1000 1500

Fig. 29. Symmetric mooring system for simulation.

Horizontal Force from Mooring Lines 8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 -1000 0 100 200 300 400 time [s] 500 600 700 800 Offset [m] Hor. Force Moor 1 [kN] Hor. Force Moor 2 [kN]

Fig. 30. Time trace of top end tension on each moor.

In Fig. 30, a typical time trace of a taught mooring conguration is shown. Even with slow motion of the top end, horizontal tension in the mooring lines reaches states of null values. This very asymmetric signal, departing considerably from a sinusoid, has been found in previous studies, amongst others by Huang and Vassalos (1995), Webster (1995) and Aranha and Pinto (2001). In Fig. 31 the response spectrum is almost at, just as is the excitation. This indicates frequency-independent proportional response only attainable when the system is governed by constant restoring coefcient.

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x 106 18 16 14 S (f) [kN2s] 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 0 0.05

Power-Spectral Density of Response Mooring Force Model Force

standard deviation from dynamic code = 5040 kN standard deviation from model = 5027.5 kN

0.1

0.15 f [Hz]

0.2

0.25

0.3

Fig. 31. Power spectral density of response to Schroeder-phased input.

Table 9 Coefcients for a taught conguration a1 M-Sine 3 Static 3 380635 368011 a10 M-Sine 3 Static 3 2971.8 a2 139.6 123.3 a11 3310.1 a3 57664.4 a12 1501.5 a4 63623.1 a13 280.5 a5 203.4 a10 2971.8 a6 212.5 a7 229.2 a8 30.1 a9 2454

Taught situations render the possibility of further simplication. As was mentioned and may be observed in Table 9, or conrmed by inspection of Fig. 31, this problem is governed by restoring coefcients with relatively small contributions from a3, a4, a5 and a7. Ultimately, apart from restoring forces, all other coefcients may be disregarded, and if non-linear effects of snap loading or the mooring itself are not important for the analysis, quasi-static calculations sufce. When the dynamic code is used, top-end horizontal tension may reach zero in one of the mooring lines, normally this wont happen in the static code, but this is also relatively unimportant to the resultant force owing to the very large tension the other mooring line has attained at that instant.

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x 104

Model Response

0.5

-0.5

Model Force [kN] Mooring Force [kN]

-1 0 100 200 300 400 time [s] 500 600 700 800

Fig. 32. Time trace of T10020 model and T20040 simulation.

3.7. Taught mooring with 40 m drift and 200 s period This case is not very realistic because tensions in the individual mooring lines are already too large for a real case, but anyhow, the behaviour is seen not to be signicantly different from the one experienced with the T10020. Here, in Fig. 32, only a sample prediction using the coefcients as determined in T10020 is presented. T10040 is not presented because it is redundant in this context. The relative error in standard deviation is less than 9%.

4. Conclusions A simplied model, for estimating mooring forces arising from horizontal motions, has been assessed. The model starts from physical reasoning, but its coefcients are estimated from a least square identication procedure. The coefcients are estimated from a single quick run of a cable dynamics code using special Schroeder-phased signal. Three examples shown were: a slack mooring, a moderately slack mooring and a taught mooring conguration. The identication procedure was shown to work well for single catenary slack and taught moorings, but has some problems with the intermediate conguration. The estimation problem is due to the strong, but continuous, behaviour change as the geometric capability to accommodate loads ends and the elastic load bearing is triggered.

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Complex multileg arrangements with localised buoyancy, etc, could be analysed using the same technique. The nal equation is very simple to include into a time domain moored vessel dynamics program and eventually may be used to monitor the forces at the fairlead during long time domain simulations.

Acknowledgment ncia e a The work of the rst author has been nanced by Fundac a para a Cie - o Tecnologia under grant SFRH/BM/4244/2001. References
Aranha, J.A.P., Pinto, M.O., 2001. Dynamic tension in risers and mooring lines: an algebraic approximation for harmonic excitation. Applied Ocean Research 23, 6381. Banduin, C., Naciri, M., 2000. A contribution on quasi-static mooring line damping. Journal of Offshore Mechanics Arctic Engineering 122, 125133. Braun, M.W., Ortiz-Mojica, R., Rivera, D.E., 2000. Design of Minimum Crest Factor Multisinusoidal Signals for Plant-Friendly Identication of Nonlinear Process Systems. In: Proceedings of the 12th IFAC Symposium on System Identication, June 2123, Santa Barbara, CA. Godfrey, K. (Ed.), 1993. Perturbation Signals for System Identication. Prentice-Hall International, Great Britain. Huang, S., Vassalos, D., 1995. Chaotic Heave Motion of Marine Cable-body Systems. In: Proceedings of the 1st ISOPE Offshore and Mining Symposium, Tsukuba, Japan. Kalaba, R., Spingarn, K., 1982. Control, Identication and Input Optimization. Plenum Press, New York. Leonard, J.W., Idris, K., Yim, S.C.S., 2000. Large angular motions of tethered surface buoys. Ocean Engineering 27, 13451371. Pascoal, R., Huang, S., Barltrop, N., Guedes Soares, C., 2005. Equivalent Force Model for the Effect of Mooring Systems. Applied Ocean Research, in press. Schroeder, M.R., 1970. Synthesis of low-peak-factor signals and binary sequences with low autocorrelation. IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory IT-16, 8589. Webster, W.C., 1995. Mooring induced damping. Ocean Engineering 22 (6), 571591.