This paper concerns an investigation of the effects of nonlinearity of drag loading on offshore structures excited by 2D wave fields, where the nonlinear term in the Morison equation is replaced by an equivalent cubic expansion. The equivalent cubic expansion coefficients for the equivalent drag model are obtained using the least mean square procedure. Numerical results are given. The displacement response and the stress response processes obtained using the above loading model are compared with simulation results and those obtained from equivalent linearization of the drag term.
The loading imposed on structural members of an offshore structure subjected to wave action represents one of the major steps in design of deepwater bottom-supported structures. The wave loading is normally estimated using the well-known Morison equation for a member with dimensions such that the presence of the member does not significantly disturb the wave field. This paper concerns an investigation of the effects of nonlinearity of drag loading on offshore structures excited by irregular 2D wave fields, where the nonlinear term in the Morison equation is replaced by an equivalent cubic expansion. The structural system is modelled by a linear system with a finite number of degrees of freedom. A system reduction based on an eigenmode expansion is applied, where the frequency response matrix of the system is expressed in two terms, corresponding to the quasi-static contribution and the dynamic contribution, respectively. The first order wave theory is applied to relate the surface elevation with the local kinematics of water particles. The influence of the velocity of the structure is ignored in the drag term. It is assumed that the sea surface can be considered as a realization of a stationary zero-mean Gaussian process, which is also homogeneous in the horizontal space parameters.
