When FPSO is operating in a given oilfield, the environment load including wind, wave and current force will act on it. The wind force is a constant force which will drag the hull away from the original position. It is very important to calculate the wind force correctly in FPSO mooring system and motion analysis. The engineers usually do the calculation according to OCIMF or API rules.
OCIMF is a rule established for the oil tanker, and it is usually used for FPSO too. But the oil tanker arrangement is different from FPSO. There are live quarter, pipelines and passageway on the deck of oil tanker, and there is more stuff such as the process utilities, flare booms, power stations on the deck of FPSO. Thus, it should be argued deductively whether it is right to calculate the FPSO wind force using the method described in OCIMF. API rules are worked out for offshore floating system. The method to get the wind force is also used widely by people. Its theory is to get the wind force by summing all the facilities on the FPSO topside.
Aiming at the wind loads on FPSO, the model test is carried out in wind tunnel and typical curves of wind loads on FPSO are obtained. The test results are compared with those data from OCIMF and API formula calculation. The differences among those results are presented, and suggestions to get the FPSO wind force are given too. The result in the paper can be used for the FPSO wind force calculation and can be a valuable reference to the design and research of FPSO.
