Abstract
This study presents two tension leg platform (TLP) conceptual designs to account for different environmental conditions including water depths in the Asia Pacific region. The TLPs are designed for similar functional requirements to support relatively small topsides for dry tree systems. Hull global motions are calculated using proprietary and commercially available simulation tools. For one of the two TLPs, tendon springing and ringing responses are calculated using advanced numerical methods, i.e. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) with additional user codes based on Euler Overlay Method (EOM) and a newly developed fully coupled hull and mooring analysis procedure.
This study shows that TLPs can be designed for different environmental conditions and they can potentially be scaled down to cater for smaller wellbays or to use tender assisted drilling (TAD) on the platform. The CFD methodology presented for tendon springing and ringing analyses can be used to complement model-scale laboratory testing which has been the only means to obtain these high frequency responses, until the present time.
