ON THE EVALUATION OF TWO DESIGN VERSIONS OF A 23000T OFF-SHORE BARGE BY THE HYDROELASTIC LONG-TERM APPROACH

Abstract

In this paper the hydroelastic study is developed for a 23000T off-shore barge, with a maximum length of 189 m, focusing on a comparative study for two design versions with 40 m and 50 m breadth. The initial off-shore barge with 40 m breadth has been extended to 50 m breadth by adding a supplementary tank section at the centerline, so making it possible to ensure transport capabilities for cargo structures extra wide. The two versions of the off-shore barges are analyzed at full cargo capacity of 23000 t case, for speed values 0 and 7 knots, corresponding to operation on-site at zero speed and maximum transition speed conditions, under head irregular waves with interference components, for a short-term averaged waves’ spectrum. The hull structure of the off-shore barge versions is almost uniform over the whole length, mainly being recorded stress hot-spot at the hull transversal bulkheads connection with the other orthogonal panels and forepeak of the barge, with a maximum of 1.2 hot-spot factor at the prismatic barge hull part. This study is developed by own software DYN-HYD, involving the modules for the hydroelastic long-term approach, applied for the evaluation of the safety limit in the long-term operation conditions.