Active anti-rolling characteristics of fluid momentum wheel for cylindrical FPSO under wave conditions

Abstract

In complex sea conditions, floating platforms experience unavoidable roll and pitch motions that impact the efficiency and safety of the crew and equipment. To address the application limitations of gyrostabilizer, the fluid momentum wheel (FMW) based on the angular momentum and precession principle is proposed. The motion responses of a cylindrical floating body in the numerical wave tank are compared with those in an experimental tank to verify the accuracy of the numerical method. Additionally, the results for the coupling model of the floating platform and the FMW demonstrate that the FMW can achieve an effective response reduction, which can be up to 99.64 %. Next, the paper explores the anti-rolling characteristics of the FMW by examining various start-up strategies and arrangement locations, which indicate that the strategy of slow linear growth can enhance the anti-rolling stability and reduce costs. The arrangement location of FMW has a minor impact on the motion control process, highlighting its advantage in adjusting the center of gravity (COG) of the platform. Finally, the FMW demonstrates good applicability across different COGs and geometric configurations, effectively producing stabilizing effects on classic cylindrical platforms with various parameters. These findings evidence the ability of the FMW to reduce pitch motion responses of floating platforms, providing a basis for its potential application on offshore platforms.