FPSO INTEGRITY - JIP on FPSO Fatigue Loads

The hull forms used for FPSOs and trading tankers look very similar. So similar in fact that it may appear that one could use the same design and design methods for both vessels. Both vessels will be subject to extreme and fatigue loading and both will have a similar design life. But each will have different design requirements and therefore different designs.
The trading tanker spends most of its life moving oil from one location to another, in either one of two draft conditions, ballast or laden. They are dry-docked at regular intervals for maintenance, inspection and if necessary repair.
FPSOs are stationary, i.e. they have zero forward speed, the vessel’s draft is continuously changing, the maintenance and inspection is done in situ, and they are not usually dry-docked.
These apparently subtle differences, see Table 1, in design requirements are not so subtle with respect to the load differences, both short term and long term for the two designs. This difference is the driver for the FPSO Integrity Joint Industry Project.
The JIP was established to obtain fatigue load information on an FPSO through full-scale measurements. The main goals were as following:

• Develop of a computational model for fatigue loading.
• Evaluate current practice.
• Have the Classification Societies conduct a comparative study, and
• Recommend a fatigue method for use in design of FPSOs.

The work in this JIP is being further enhanced through a sister JIP “FPSO Fatigue Capacity” being administered by DnV. By combining the results of the two JIPs, the industry is gaining a better knowledge of the fatigue loads and fatigue resistance on FPSOs. Predictive methods are being developed to calculate the fatigue lifetime of FPSOs and this is leading toward more reliable systems.

This paper is copyrighted material and cannot be shared. Due to copyright policy MARIN is not allowed to reproduce and distribute papers written for and presented at the OTC (Offshore Technology Conference), ISOPE (International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference) and SPE (Society of Petroleum Engineers). You can order these papers through
www.OnePetro.org.

For this specific paper see: www.onepetro.org/conference-paper/OTC-12142-MS.