Effects of Design Parameter on Occurrence of Snap Load and Wear of Mooring Line for Spar-Buoy With Ring-Fin Motion Stabilizer for Shallow Sea

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to propose an optimal design method of the spar-buoy with ring-fin motion stabilizer for shallow sea and its mooring system, in order to avoid the occurrence of snap load. The mechanism of occurrence of snap load is investigated by model tests, and design parameters for avoiding the occurrence of snap load are investigated. From the observation of model’s motion, it has been realized that the snap load is caused by the tension of mooring line to stop the buoy’s horizontal motion, which relaxes the mooring line. Moreover, it has been confirmed that the horizontal motion is caused by the horizontal forces acting on the center pipe and float of the buoy, which relates to the acceleration component of wave excitation forces. In this paper, the effects of changing of design of the buoy (: diameter of center pipe and float, size of stabilizer, density of the buoy, length of mooring line) on avoiding or reducing snap load are investigated by using a numerical simulation (OrcaFlexver.11.0b), and the wear amounts are also estimated by using an empirical method (Takeuchi et al., 2019). From the results, it is confirmed that changing the buoy’s motion mode by shortening mooring line is effective to avoiding the occurrence of snap load, and to reduce the wear amount of the mooring line.