Coupled numerical model for the nonlinear dynamics of deepwater single barge installation system

Equipment damage, operational and personnel safety are critical for the sustenance of marine engineering and offshore oil and gas projects. Deepwater installation of heavier equipment are usually faced with harsh environmental conditions which could lead to accidents and assets damage if not carefully handled. In this paper, a floating barge with suspended payload and 3-DOF is modelled to investigate the dynamic response of the floating installation system to oscillating loads, wire-rope tensions, and payload positions. By using Velocity Transformation Technique and Lagrange Energy Method the coupled equations of motion system for a 6-DOF multibody dynamic model are established. The coupled equations of motion systems are numerically solved with Fourth-Order Runge-Kutta Method. The accuracy of the proposed model is validated with the existing floating barge model and it performs better than the OrcaFlex and MOSES models. The proposed model will improve operational design for safe ocean engineering and deepwater equipment installations.

Automated summary

This study models a floating barge with suspended payload and 3-DOF to investigate the dynamic response of the floating installation system. The coupled equations of motion system for a 6-DOF multibody dynamic model are established and numerically solved. The proposed model performs better than existing models and will improve operational design for safe ocean engineering and deepwater equipment installations.