Underdeck Wave Slamming Model Tests for a Drilling Semi-Submersible Unit

Negative air gap and wave slamming load on the deck box of drilling semi-submersible units in severe storm have received a great deal of attention, due to the COSL Innovator accident in 2015. Equally important is vertical slamming load on the MODU underdeck, which is less reported in the literature. The present paper attempts to derive characteristic vertical slamming pressure on the deck bottom, based on an extensive model test program for a drilling semi-submersible unit, CM-SD1000. A total of 96 3-hour wave impact tests were conducted including 4 sea states selected along the DNV steepness criterion curve in 3 wave headings. Two critical sea states were identified and each was tested with 16 random realizations in both the head and the beam waves. 8 force panels were installed on the under-deck to capture vertical wave impact events. It is found that the peak slamming pressures obtained can be fitted well with both Weibull and Gumbel probability function. The extreme vertical impact pressure predicted are of the same order of magnitude as the extreme horizontal impact pressure. The present study also shows that rise velocities of the wave surface relative to the deck bottom have a remarkable correlation with the wave slamming pressure in terms of probability distribution. The relative rise velocities can be properly derived from wave probe measurements. This offers an alternative approach to estimate the vertical impact pressure without resort to force panels. In contrast to horizontal wave slamming, the magnitude and frequency of vertical ones simply increases with significant wave height and wave steepness has much less effect. It is found that the extreme vertical impact pressure can be approximated well by a linear function of the significant wave height. The linear relationship, if validated by more tests, may help evaluate structural strength of the deck bottom before wave basin model testing.