Coupled Analysis for Dry Transportation of Large Floating Production Systems

It is becoming increasingly common to dry transport floating production systems (FPS), especially when there is a long distance between the shipyard and deployment site. The FPS, heavy lift vessel, and interfacial components (the cribbing and seafastening) need to be properly evaluated and designed, usually through Finite Element Analysis (FEA). Common practice of the analysis on dry transportation is decoupling the FPS and heavy lift vessels. A decoupled analysis is unable to directly consider the interacting effects from other components and simulate the actual loading scenarios. This paper presents a coupled analysis framework, in which the FPS, the vessel and the interfacial components are explicitly included in the FE analysis. The shaped cribbing and seafastening can therefore be designed and evaluated at a more highly optimized level. The interaction between the FPS and transport vessel is also successfully simulated. The approach is able to provide more realistic and accurate response of the system. The methodology and procedure of the coupled analysis used for dry transportation are presented in the paper, followed by sample calculations and results from a generic dry transportation analysis.