Developing Industry Guidelines for the CFD-Based Evaluation of Wind Load on Offshore Floating Facilities

This paper summarizes an on-going effort by SNAME OC-8 CFD Task Force to provide guidelines on wind-load estimation by CFD simulation. The intention of the guidelines is to help the industry to obtain reliable and accurate estimations of wind load on offshore floating facilities using CFD technology, for the purposes of stability, global-performance and mooring analyses. The starting point of the guidelines is CFD modeling practices collectively developed by ten participants of the Task Force. Blind validation of the wind loads from CFD simulations has been made for a semisubmersible with simplified topsides geometry. Comparison of the wind loads from independent CFD simulations from the participants confirmed that CFD can provide reliable and accurate wind load with fewer uncertainties in the simulation (or test) set up than wind-tunnel testing. A roadmap to develop the guidelines based on the CFD modeling practices is proposed.