Evaluating the safety of floating structure under the design sea condition

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Evaluating the safety of floating structure under the design sea condition
Msc. Nguyen Tien Cong [1], Dr. Le Thanh Binh[2]
1. Shipbuilding Faculty, Vietnam Maritime University, congnt@vimaru.edu.vn
2. Shipbuilding Faculty, Vietnam Maritime University, binhlth@vimaru.edu.vn
Abstract This paper shows results from the calculations and analyses of the longitudinal strength of a
multi-purpose floating structure built by Quang Trung Mechanical Enterprise in Vietnam. The structure
is concerned under its design sea conditions, using environmental statistical data and spectral theory of
ship hydrodynamic in irregular waves. The long-term distribution of wave bending moment is
approximated to the Weibull distribution based on the results of short-term analyses. For analyzing the
longitudinal strength, the calculation is taken for different wave propagation directions and in different
sea states corresponding to the wave statistical data. As a result, the study will give a conclusion about
the safety of the structure in terms of longitudinal strength. This paper also introduces a reliability based
approach for accessing structure’s strength to predict the working safety of floating structures under the
real sea conditions.
Keywords: shear forces, bending moments, floating structure, longitudinal strength, spectral theory,
reliability based approach.
1. Introduction
During the lifetime of ships and floating structures, besides loads from structure’s weight, cargo, etc
the structures have to work under loads induced by surrounding environment, for example sea waves,
wind and current. Wave induced motions and loads on structures are the common topics that are being
highly concerned in recent years. In the assessment process of longitudinal strength, the most important
load is vertical wave bending moment amidships that depends on many factors, for example the loading
conditions, the weight distribution, the angle of incoming waves, etc. These factors are mostly random
and must be taken into account in calculations. Because of the randomness, many studies often based
on probabilistic theory and spectral theory using wave statistic data of the navigating area. So, the
researched structures are then evaluated the safety factor by calculating probability of exceeding
extreme values. A.P. Teixeira & C. Guedes Soares [5] presented the reliability based approach to
determine the design loads for the remaining lifetime of ships. In their study, the probability distribution
of the wave induced loads was obtained by weighting the conditional Rayleigh distribution according
to the probability of occurrence of the various sea states in the ship route, such as significant wave high
Hs, zero up-crossing frequency T0, the ship heading θ, ship speed v and loading condition c, etc. The
exceedance probability of the vertical bending moment (VBM) was approximated to the Weibull
distribution. Using these methods, authors evaluated the longitudinal strength of the studied ship in the
period of 20 years, predicted the remaining time of the ship. This calculation method was also applied
by C. Guedes Soares in the report for “Probabilistic Models for Load Effects in Ship Structures” [6].
In addition, to ensure the safety during working time, the strength of ships are often evaluated through
either ships ultimate strength performance or fatigue and fracture analyses. For example, J.K. Paik et al
[9], in 2009, used ALPS/ULSAP code for ultimate strength calculations of stiffened plate structures and
ALPS/HULL code for progressive hull collapse analysis. The structure in their study is a Suezmax
tanker. Z. Shu & T. Moan [10] also presented a study for the “assessment of the hull girder ultimate
strength of a bulk carrier using nonlinear finite element analysis”.
Regarding the fatigue and fracture analyses, ship structures are often studied in more details, at specific
positions which are predicted to occur the fatigue or fracture damages, such as window and door corners
of ship structure studied by Mika Bäckström & Seppo Kivimaa [11], fillet welds at doubler plates and
lap joints studied by O. Feltz & W. Fricke [12], hatch corners studied by Hubertus von Selle et al [13]
and hatch cover bearing pad by Kukkanen T. and Mikkola T. P. J. [15].
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This paper presents an analysis of the longitudinal strength of the multi-purpose floating structure built
by Quang Trung Mechanical Enterprise. The structure has the main task as a transhipment terminal of
containers for container ships in Vietnam, and as a floating dock for building new ship and ship
repairing. Because the structure is newly designed with the dimensions exceeding the current upper
limit values of Vietnam Register (VR), all the analyses of the structure safety are strictly considered,
especially long-term analysis of longitudinal strength. The structure is designed to work along the North
coast of Vietnam, between Hon Dau and Hon Ngu islands with the sea data are shown in the section 3
later. The Response Amplitude Operator (RAO) of shear forces and bending moments (SF/BM) of the
structure will be calculated, combined with wave spectra data to get the output spectra of SF/BM. From
these calculations, the life time of the researched structure will be predicted.
2. Theory background
2.1 Wave load on ships and offshore structures
During the working time, there are a number of forces impacting on the structures. Generally, these
forces include static loads, low-frequency dynamic loads and high-frequency dynamic loads.
Static loads are influenced by weights of ship and her contents, static buoyancy of the ship at rest or
moving, thermal loads resulting from nonlinear temperature gradients within the hull, etc.
Low – frequency dynamic loads include following components: wave-induced hull pressure
variations, hull pressure variations caused by oscillatory ship motions, inertial reactions resulting from
the acc ...  of ( ) to 1 − ( ).
3. Long-term safety evaluation of the multi-purpose floating structure
3.1 Parameters of the structure
To evaluate long-term safety of the investigated floating structure, the details of the structure parameters
as well as structure’s working environment must be provided. Table 1 shows the summarization of the
structure’s parameters. Because the structure is newly designed, then all load conditions data during the
life time of the structure are still unknown. So, in this study, the load conditions of the structure are
supposed to include three main cases: Full load, Ballast load and Partial load, with the corresponding
time consuming proportions are 0.4, 0.4 and 0.2 (of the structure’s working time), respectively.
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Table 1 Main parameters of the structure
Main parameters
Lpp [m] 171.000 D [m] 12.000
B [m] 25.000 CB [m] 0.951
T [m] 4.500 Elastic section modulus
amidships [m3] 4.476Neutral axis [m] 4.600
Parameters in particular load conditions
Full load Partial load Ballast load
Draft amidships [m] 4.500 3.830 2.830
xG [m] -0.804 -0.404 1.261
yG [m] 0.000 0.000 0.000
zG [m] 5.621 4.565 3.949
Displacement [kg] 19173605 16102481 11711206
3.2 Working area data
The structure is designed to work along the North coast of Vietnam, between Hon Dau and Hon Ngu
islands shown on Figure 2.
Figure 2 The design working area of the structure
In 2014, Supott Thammasittirong (AIT), Sutat Weesakul (AIT), Ali Dastgheib (UNESCO-IHE) and
Roshanka Ranasinghe (UNESCO-IHE) [14] presented a report of their study on “Climate Change
Driven Variations in the Wave Climate along the Coast of Vietnam”. This report included statistical
wave data of sea area along the North coast of Vietnam, between Hon Dau and Hon Ngu islands. The
report also shown that during the period of time from 1981 to 2000, the mean wave height at the above
sea area ranged from 0.4 m to 1.0 m; the mean wave period ranged from 4.0 s to 6.5 s and the main
wave direction was South-East. These data are well fitted with the data from the National Centre for
Hydro - Meteorological Forecasting [7] which are given on the Table 2 below.
Table 2 gives basic data for the short-term calculations for the structure strength. With the results gained
from the short-term calculations, strength of structure will be evaluated in given periods of time, such
as 1 years, 5 years, 10 years, and 20 years.
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Table 2 Annual statistical data of the design sea area
SUM 559 315 101 20 4 1 0 0 1000
Si
gn
ifi
ca
n
t W
av
e 
H
ei
gh
t [
m
]: 
H
i >9.5 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0
8.5 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0
7.5 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0
6.5 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0
5.5 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0
4.5 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0
3.5 -- 1 1 -- -- -- -- -- 2
2.5 6 11 5 2 1 -- -- -- 25
1.5 73 85 38 9 2 -- -- -- 207
0.5 480 218 57 9 1 1 -- -- 766
T0 [s] 3.5 4.5 5.5 6.5 7.5 8.5 9.5 >10.5 SUM
T0- mean [s] 4.10
3.3 Results and discussion
The structure is supposed to work in its design sea wave environment with different wave frequencies
and propagation directions. These frequencies range from 0.2 rad/s to 2.5 rad/s. The wave propagation
angles range from -180o to +180o (  = 30o) with the corresponding probability of each is 1/12, [3]. We
also suppose that the weight distribution in each load condition is fixed, the liquid’s sloshing in tanks
are neglected, and the structure will generally have 1 month docking for small renovation each year, 3
÷6 months docking for big renovation every 5 years of working. Figure 3 shows examples of the
calculated bending moment RAO at mid-section of the structure in different wave propagation
directions.
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Figure 3 RAO of BM in the full load condition at different wave propagation directions
The results of bending moment RAO calculations can be combined with wave spectra data to obtain
the spectra of bending moment following equation (5). The values of are calculated following
equation (12), and the short-term probability (Psh) of bending moment on the structure exceeding the
given values are calculated following equation (11), depending on sea state probability, wave
propagation directions, wave frequencies. For example, Table 3 shows a result of the full load condition
calculation. It shows the probabilities of which the VBM exceed the permissible bending moment of
the structure amidships (M0) in the full load condition. Here, the value of the moment M0 is determined
by the formula following IACS Recommendation 1989/Rev.6 [8]≤ [ ] [MN/m2] (16)
where [ ] is the permissible stress of the structure steel, and [ ] = 175 [MN/m2] for ordinary hull
structure steel. is the structure’s elastic section modulus, and = 4.476 [m3] as shown in the Table
1.
From the condition shown in the formula (16), we can obtained the limited value of bending moment
of the structure as follows = . [ ] = 787.494 [MN.m] (17)
Table 3 Corresponding Probability of BM exceeding the limited value M0 in full load condition
SUM 8.5E-175 8.45E-21 3.63E-14 5.16E-22 1.2E-23 0 3.63E-14
Si
gn
ifi
ca
n
t W
av
e 
H
ei
gh
t [
m
]: 
H
i >9.5 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0
8.5 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0
7.5 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0
6.5 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0
5.5 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0
4.5 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- 0
3.5 -- 8.45E-21 3.63E-14 -- -- -- -- -- 3.63E-14
2.5 8.5E-175 2.45E-35 1.12E-22 5.16E-22 1.2E-23 -- -- -- 6.4E-22
1.5 0 5.4E-91 3.15E-55 6.64E-53 1.41E-57 -- -- -- 6.68E-53
0.5 0 0 0 0 0 0 -- -- 0
T0 [s] 3.5 4.5 5.5 6.5 7.5 8.5 9.5 >10.5
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It is clearly seen that, in the full load case, the total probability of which the VBM amidships exceed
the permissible bending moment of the structure M0 is 3.63E-14.
By assuming a range of exceeded VBM MW, we can calculate the corresponding probabilities shown in
the Table 4 for all load conditions.
Table 4 Short-term Probabilities of the bending moments exceeding the given values MW
MW
Probability of exceeding Mw
MW
Probability of exceeding Mw
Full Load Partial Ballast Full Load Partial Ballast
(kN.m) Psh Psh Psh (kN.m) Psh Psh Psh
10 4.07E-01 3.44E-01 3.39E-01 145 1.43E-03 1.15E-03 1.11E-03
25 1.38E-01 1.16E-01 1.12E-01 160 8.81E-04 7.15E-04 6.86E-04
40 6.77E-02 5.46E-02 5.25E-02 175 5.48E-04 4.48E-04 4.26E-04
55 3.79E-02 2.96E-02 2.90E-02 190 3.43E-04 2.83E-04 2.66E-04
70 2.14E-02 1.66E-02 1.64E-02 300 1.07E-05 9.90E-06 8.63E-06
85 1.20E-02 9.36E-03 9.27E-03 400 5.13E-07 4.79E-07 4.28E-07
100 6.79E-03 5.37E-03 5.29E-03 500 1.95E-08 1.59E-08 1.46E-08
115 3.94E-03 3.15E-03 3.08E-03 600 3.85E-10 2.80E-10 2.54E-10
130 2.34E-03 1.89E-03 1.83E-03 787.494 3.63E-14 2.08E-14 1.78E-14
where Psh = , is the short-term probability of VBM exceeding the given value MW in
each load condition. For example, when MW = 115 [kN.m], the total probability of VBM exceeding this
MW in the Full load, Partial load and Ballast load conditions are 3.94E-03, 3.15E-03 and 3.08E-03,
respectively. By fitting the values of Psh in each load condition with the values of P(MW) given in
equation (15), we can find the Weibull parameters k and w shown on Table 5.
Table 5 Long-term safety assessment results of the structure
Load condition Full load Partial load Ballast load
Weibull
parameters
k 0.7924 0.7244 0.724
w 11.24 9.05 8.876
Goodness of fit
SSE: 0.0003943
R-sq: 0.9975
Adjusted R-sq: 0.9973
RMSE: 0.005507
SSE: 0.000131
R-square: 0.9988
Adjusted R-sq: 0.9988
RMSE: 0.003175
SSE: 0.0001535
R-square: 0.9986
Adjusted R-sq: 0.9985
RMSE: 0.003436
T (years) PT PF PP PB
1 year 1.417E-06 3.543E-07 3.543E-07 7.087E-07
5 years 2.998E-07 7.496E-08 7.496E-08 1.499E-07
10 years 1.499E-07 3.748E-08 3.748E-08 7.496E-08
20 years 7.496E-08 1.874E-08 1.874E-08 3.748E-08
P(Mw>M0) 2.55027E-13 9.1948E-12 6.71896E-12
PT(Mw>M0) 1.617E-11
Here, PT is the total probability in all load conditions (full load, partial load and ballast load conditions)
at which the structure has one time within T years the BM exceeds its limit value. Similarly, PF, PP, PB
are the probabilities at which the structure has one time the wave bending moment exceeds its limit
value in the time period of survey in the full load, partial load and ballast load conditions, respectively.
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PT(Mw>M0) is the totally long-term probability occurring one time BM on the structure exceeding the
limited value M0. This probability is 1.617E-11, much lower than 20 years probability shown in the
Table 5, which is 7.496E-08. It means that in terms of wave bending moment, the structure have a more
than 20 years life time working well under this load. This result should be combined with other
calculations such as longitudinal strength analysis of the structure working in hogging and sagging
conditions, ultimate strength analysis and other analyses to give a final conclusion of the structure’s
longitudinal strength.
4. Conclusion
The paper presents a method for long-term analysis of the structure strength under wave induced BM,
based on spectra analysis and probability theory. The study also analysed partly the longitudinal
strength of the structure in both short-term and long-term periods and predicted the age of the structure
under the working sea environment. This is the key study that helps to solve the problems and current
arguments of the very large structure built by Quang Trung Mechanical Enterprise. However, there are
several issues in the study that need to take into account more carefully, such as the assumptions.
Regarding the input data, the sea environment data should be updated to the latest figures. The
distribution of weight components along the structure is supposed to be fixed at each load condition,
but in practice, this weight distribution will vary significantly, depending on different working states.
Moreover, the load conditions in the study are only three main types (full load, partial load and ballast
load conditions), which the corresponding time consuming proportions are supposed to follow the
traditional rate of ship as 0.4, 0.4 and 0.2. The reason is the structure is newly built, leading to a lack of
statistical data of structure working information.
Besides, the effect of mooring system should be considered, because it has significant influence on the
RAO of wave bending moment. Similarly, the probabilities of wave propagation directions need to be
obtained from real sea statistics, which may not be equal between different directions as the assumption
in this study.
Acknowledgements
This study is a part of the safety assessment process for the floating structure built by Quang Trung
Mechanical Enterprise which have been received essential data from the company.
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