Vibration Control of A Flexible Marine Riser System Subject to Input Dead Zone and Extraneous Disturbances

An observer-based adaptive backstepping boundary control is proposed for vibration control of flexible offshore riser systems with unknown nonlinear input dead zone and uncertain environmental disturbances.The control algorithm can update the control law online through real-time data to make the controller adapt to the environment and improve the control precision.Specifically,based on the adaptive backstepping framework,virtual control laws and Lyapunov functions are designed for each subsystem.Three direction interference observers are designed to track the timevarying boundary disturbance.On this basis,the inverse of the dead zone and linear state transformation are used to compensate for the original system and eliminate the adverse effects of the dead zone.In addition,the stability of the closed-loop system is proven by Lyapunov stability theory.All the system states are bounded,and the vibration offset of the riser converges to a small area of the initial position.Finally,four examples of flexible marine risers are simulated in MATLAB to verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

Evaluation of the Safe and Failure Zones of Mooring and Riser Systems in a CALM Oil Terminal

The mooring and riser system is the most critical part of an ofshore oil terminal.Traditionally,these two parts are designed separately without considering the nonlinear interaction between them.Thus,the present paper aims to develop an inte-grated design process for riser systems with a lazy-S confguration and mooring systems in the ofshore catenary anchor leg mooring(CALM)oil terminal.One of the important criteria considered in this integrated design is the ofset diagram and safe operation zone(SAFOP)related to the mooring system and the riser,respectively.These two diagrams are obtained separately by diferent analyses;therefore,codes or standards are available separately for two components.In this methodol-ogy,the diagrams of both risers and mooring lines are incorporated into a single spiral,thus identifying the safe and failure zones of risers and the mooring lines of the oil terminal.This,in turn,leads to substantial benefts in terms of overall system response,cost reduction,and safety to the ofshore oil terminal.To implement this process,three diferent riser lengths with the lazy-S confguration are considered at three diferent sea depths at the terminal installation site.For each condition,the integrated design of the mooring system and riser is executed according to the derived procedure.Then,coupled dynamic models,wherein both buoys and hoses are included,are developed using OrcaFlex.Results show that the criteria of the relevant regulations are not satisfed by reducing the length of the riser relative to the designed size.Further,as water depth increases,this type of riser confguration shows good coupled performance while interacting with the mooring system.In the cross ofset mode,the maximum margin is created between the ofset diagram and the SAFOP diagram,while the most critical dynamic response of the tanker and terminal system occurs in the near and far modes.Therefore,with this method,the best position for the riser direction with the tanker direction is 90°in the best case.

Mechanical analysis of deepwater drilling riser system based on multibody system dynamics

A multibody system including a drilling riser system,tensioners and a floating platform is key equipment for offshore oil and gas drilling.Most of the previous studies only focus on the drilling riser system rather than the multibody system.Mechanical characteristics of the deepwater drilling riser system cannot be analyzed accurately in a simplified model.Therefore,a three-dimensional multibody analysis program is developed.The static and dynamic characteristics of the deepwater drilling riser system under different platform motions are analyzed based on the developed program.The results show that the static displacement of the riser system with tensioners is smaller than that without tensioners,which means the tensioners can suppress the deformation of the riser system.Under surge and sway motions of the platform,the dynamic displacement of the riser system with tensioners is also smaller than that without tensioners due to the tensioner suppression effect.Besides,the heave motion induces a uniform axial vibration of the riser system,while roll and pitch motions excite the riser system to vibrate laterally.Compared with the stress amplitude due to surge and sway motions,the stress amplitude of the riser system due to heave,roll and pitch motions is relatively small but cannot be neglected.

Design and Analysis of Tapered Stress Joint for Top Tensioned Riser System

Stress Joint （SJ） plays a key role in the Top Tensioned Riser （TTR） system for deep water engineering. A preliminary design method of tapered SJ is proposed in the paper, which could help designers obtain accurate design data. After a further sensitive analysis is carried out, the related parameters choice and control methods are recommended in the engineering practice. By taking the extreme environment conditions into consideration, the effects of bending stress reduction and curve control are analyzed, and the 3-D FE models are established by ABQOUS for numerical evaluation to verify the correctness of design results. At last, dynamic analysis and fatigue analysis, based on actual project, are carried out with designed stress joint. The analysis results prove the feasibility and guidance of this method in the practical engineering applications.

Numerical and Experimental Study on the Dynamics of the Tendon/Top Tension Riser System of a Tension-Leg Platform

In this study,the dynamics of the tendon/top tension riser(TTR)system of a tension-leg platform(TLP)are investigated through an experiment and by using absolute nodal coordinate formulation(ANCF).First,the model test of the TLP system is conducted in the water tank of Harbin Engineering University to examine the motion response of the TLP and the dynamic response characteristics of the tendon and TTR.The test scale ratio is set to 1:66.3.Then,on the basis of the ANCF,the stiffness,external load,and mass matrices of the element are deduced to establish the motion equation of the tendon/riser.Finally,the static and dynamic characteristics of the tendon/TTR system of TLP are analyzed systematically by using the ANCF method.The results are compared with commercial software and test results.The motion response of tendon/TTR is affected by the TLP movement and environmental load simultaneously.The analysis proves the effectiveness and accuracy of the ANCF method despite the low number of riser units,suggesting the superiority of the ANCF method for calculating the dynamics of tendon/riser in the field of ocean engineering.

Asynchronous gain-scheduled control of deepwater drilling riser system with hybrid event-triggered sampling and unreliable communication

This paper investigates the recoil control of the deepwater drilling riser system with nonlinear tension force and energy-bounded friction force under the circumstances of limited network resources and unreliable communication.Different from the existing linearization modeling method,a triangle-based polytope modeling method is applied to the nonlinear riser system.Based on the polytope model,to improve resource utilization and accommodate random data loss and communication delay,an asynchronous gain-scheduled control strategy under a hybrid event-triggered scheme is proposed.An asynchronous linear parameter-varying system that blends input delay and impulsive update equation is presented to model the nonlinear networked recoil control system,where the asynchronous deviation bounds of scheduling parameters are calculated.Resorting to the Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional method,some solvable conditions of disturbance attenuation analysis and recoil control design are derived such that the resulting networked system is exponentially mean-square stable with prescribed H∞performance.The obtained numerical results verified that the proposed nonlinear networked control method can achieve a better recoil response of the riser system with less transmission data compared with the linear control method.

Dynamic Analysis of A Deepwater Drilling Riser with A New Hang-off System

The safety of risers in hang-off states is a vital challenge in offshore oil and gas engineering.A new hang-off system installed on top of risers is proposed for improving the security of risers.This approach leads to a challenging problem:coupling the dynamics of risers with a new hang-off system combined with multiple structures and complex constraints.To accurately analyze the dynamic responses of the coupled system,a coupled dynamic model is established based on the Euler-Bernoulli beam-column theory and penalty function method.A comprehensive analysis method is proposed for coupled dynamic analysis by combining the finite element method and the Newmarkβmethod.An analysis program is also developed in MATLAB for dynamic simulation.The simulation results show that the dynamic performances of the risers at the top part are significantly improved by the new hang-off system,especially the novel design,which includes the centralizer and articulation joint.The bending moment and lateral deformation of the risers at the top part decrease,while the hang-off joint experiences a great bending moment at the bottom of the lateral restraint area which requires particular attention in design and application.The platform navigation speed range under the safety limits of risers expands with the new hang-off system in use.

Sparse Modal Decomposition Method Addressing Underdetermined Vortex-Induced Vibration Reconstruction Problem for Marine Risers

When investigating the vortex-induced vibration(VIV)of marine risers,extrapolating the dynamic response on the entire length based on limited sensor measurements is a crucial step in both laboratory experiments and fatigue monitoring of real risers.The problem is conventionally solved using the modal decomposition method,based on the principle that the response can be approximated by a weighted sum of limited vibration modes.However,the method is not valid when the problem is underdetermined,i.e.,the number of unknown mode weights is more than the number of known measurements.This study proposed a sparse modal decomposition method based on the compressed sensing theory and the Compressive Sampling Matching Pursuit(Co Sa MP)algorithm,exploiting the sparsity of VIV in the modal space.In the validation study based on high-order VIV experiment data,the proposed method successfully reconstructed the response using only seven acceleration measurements when the conventional methods failed.A primary advantage of the proposed method is that it offers a completely data-driven approach for the underdetermined VIV reconstruction problem,which is more favorable than existing model-dependent solutions for many practical applications such as riser structural health monitoring.

Experimental Study on Vortex-Induced Vibration of Rough Risers Coupling with Interference Effect in Tandem Arrangement

In order to study the response law of vortex-induced vibration(VIV)of marine risers under the combined action of roughness and interference effects,and to reveal the coupling mechanism of roughness and interference effects on the riser,a VIV experiment of rough risers in tandem arrangement was conducted in a wave−current combined flume.The experiment characterized the risers’roughness by arranging different specifications of attachments on the surface of the risers.Three rough risers with different roughness and smooth risers were arranged in tandem arrangement,with the rough risers arranged downstream.The experimental results indicate that the suppression of the attachments on the downstream risers’vibration are more significant both in the CF and IL directions as the reduced velocity increases.For the downstream riser,the amplitude response of rough riser is more significantly weakened compared with the smooth one at high reduced velocity.For the upstream risers,changes in the roughness and spacing ratio have an impact on their‘lock-in’region.When the roughness of downstream risers is relatively large(0.1300)and the spacing between risers is small(S/D=4.0),the reduced velocity range of‘lock-in’region in the CF direction of upstream risers is obviously expanded,and the displacement in the‘lock-in’region is severer.

Experimental Study on Vortex-Induced Vibration of Rough Risers with Coupling Interference Effect Under Side-by-Side Arrangement

A vortex-induced vibration(VIV)experiment of rough risers with coupling interference effect under a side-by-side arrangement was carried out in a wave-current combined flume.The roughness of the riser was characterized by arranging different specifications of surface attachments on the surface of the riser.Rough risers with three different roughnesses were arranged side by side with smooth risers to explore the VIV response of the riser under the combined action of roughness and interference effect,and to reveal the coupling mechanism between roughness and interference effect.The experimental results show that,compared with that of a smooth riser,the VIV of a rough riser under the coupling interference effect has a wider"lock-in"region,and the displacement decreases more significantly at a high reduced velocity,which is more likely to excite higher-order modes and frequency responses.In addition,the displacement response and frequency response of the smooth riser are not significantly affected by wake interference from the rough riser,which is caused by the decrease of the wake region due to the delay of the boundary layer separation point of the rough riser.

Coupled Cross-Flow/in-Line Vortex-Induced Vibration Responses of a Catenary-Type Riser Subjected to Uniform Flows

A three-dimensional numerical scheme was developed to investigate the vortex-induced vibration(VIV)of a catenary-type riser(CTR)in the in-line(IL)and cross-flow(CF)directions.By using the vector form intrinsic finite element method,the CTR was discretized into a finite number of spatial particles whose motions satisfy Newton’s second law.The Van der Pol oscillator was used to simulate the effect of vortex shedding.The coupling equations of structural vibration and wake oscillator were solved using an explicit central differential algorithm.The numerical model was verified with the published results.The VIV characteristics of the CTR subjected to uniform flows,including displacement,frequency,standing wave,traveling wave,motion trajectory,and energy transfer,were studied comprehensively.The numerical results revealed that the multimode property occurs in the CF-and IL-direction VIV responses of the CTR.An increase in the flow velocity has slight effects on the maximum VIV displacement.Due to structural nonlin-earity,the double-frequency relationship in the CF and IL directions is rarely captured.Therefore,the vibration trajectories display the shape of an inclined elliptical orbit.Moreover,the negative energy region is inconspicuous under the excitation of the uniform flow.

Adaptive neural network based boundary control of a flexible marine riser system with output constraints

In this study,we develop an adaptive neural network based boundary control method for a flexible marine riser system with unknown nonlinear disturbances and output constraints to suppress vibrations.We begin with describing the dynamic behavior of the riser system using a distributed parameter system with partial differential equations.To compensate for the effect of nonlinear disturbances,we construct a neural network based boundary controller using a radial basis neural network to reduce vibrations.Under the proposed boundary controller,the state of the riser is guaranteed to be uniformly bounded based on the Lyapunov method.The proposed methodology provides a way to integrate neural networks into boundary control for other flexible robotic manipulator systems.Finally,numerical simulations are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control method.

Characteristics of air-water upward intermittent flows with surfactant additive in a pipeline-riser system

The effect of the surfactant additive on the upward intermittent flows in a pipeline-riser system is studied experimentally, in a 3 m long horizontal pipe connected to a Perspex pipe of 2.0 m long and 25 mm in diameter, inclined to the horizontal plane by 7？, followed by the vertical PVC riser of 3.5 m high and 25 mm in diameter, operating at the atmospheric end pressure. Based on the analysis of the pressure signal and the visual observation of the riser, it is shown that the additive of surfactant to the carrying liquid makes bubbles smaller in size but much larger in number in the upward intermittent flows. In addition, the additive of surfactant to a two-phase flow does not have a significant impact on the in-situ gas fraction, the pressure drop and the frequency of the liquid slug, but it reduces significantly the velocity of the liquid slug. When the superficial liquid velocity is set, an exponential relationship between the dimensionless velocity of the liquid slug and the Webber number can be obtained. These results might be used for estimating the characteristic parameters of the upward intermittent flow based upon the input operating conditions.

Model test investigation on an innovative lifting system for deepwater riser installation

An S-lay crane barge,named CNOOC 201,has been built for pipe laying in deepwater oil/gas fields in the South China Sea.It is due to be commissioned by the end of the year 2010.A special lifting system is developed to meet the challenge that installing deepwater risers from an S-lay barge is difficult and has not been achieved.The purpose of this paper was to investigate the model test on such an innovative system,which has to be done before field application.By applying the similarity theory,the movement of the S-lay barge is simulated through a six degrees-of-freedom motion platform,and a truncated model riser is utilized for the model testing.The displacement and force boundary conditions at the truncated position of the riser are obtained from the catenary governing equation and become realized by a slideway cart and a loading system designed to control the configuration of the model riser,which presents a similar configuration to a real riser in deepwater.The test results are in very good agreement with theoretical calculations,showing that the active truncated test is applicable for controlling the configuration of the deepwater riser in model testing investigation.

An Installation System of Deepwater Risers by An S-Lay Vessel

Along with the consumption increase of the petroleum products, more countries have transferred their attentions to the offshore fields, especially the deepwater oil and gas reserves. For deepwater exploitation, the risers must be installed to act as the conduits connecting surface platforms to subsea facilities. In this paper, the typical risers sorted by different classes are introduced, and the correspondent installation methods are presented. By investigating the recent projects performed in the deepwater hot spots, and combining the challenges of HYSY20 l for riser installation, a lifting device developed for assisting riser installation is proposed and detailed to satisfy the installation of deepwater risers in the LW3-1 Gas Field of 1500 m in the South China Sea. Tests on both the functions and performances of such a new system exhibit the satisfaction of meeting all challenging requirements of HYSY201 for application to riser installation in waters up to a depth of 3000 m in the South China Sea.

Deep-water Riser Fatigue Monitoring Systems Based on Acoustic Telemetry

Marine risers play a key role in the deep and ultra-deep water oil and gas production. The vortex-induced vibration （VIV） of marine risers constitutes an important problem in deep water oil exploration and production. VIV will result in high rates of structural failure of marine riser due to fatigue damage accumulation and diminishes the riser fatigue life. In-service monitoring or full scale testing is essential to improve our understanding of V1V response and enhance our ability to predict fatigue damage. One ma- rine riser fatigue acoustic telemetry scheme is proposed and an engineering prototype machine has been developed to monitor deep and ultra-deep water risers＇ fatigue and failure that can diminish the riser fatigue life and lead to economic losses and eco-catastrophe. Many breakthroughs and innovation have been achieved in the process of developing an engineering prototype machine. Sea trials were done on the 6th generation deep-water drilling platform HYSY-981 in the South China Sea. The inclination monitoring results show that the marine riser fatigue acoustic telemetry scheme is feasible and reliable and the engineering prototype machine meets the design criterion and can match the requirements of deep and ultra-deep water riser fatigue monitoring. The rich experience and field data gained in the sea trial which provide much technical support for optimization in the engineering prototype machine in the future.

Design and Analysis of Typical Buoyancy Tank Riser Tensioner Systems

The method for design and analysis of a buoyancy tank riser tensioner system （BTRTS） was put forward in this paper, taking the free standing hybrid riser＇s top buoyancy tank as an example. The design procedure was discussed and was also illustrated in a flowchart, after a short description of the global arrangement, structure configuration, and the function of different types of buoyancy tanks （BT）. The objective of this paper is to describe a way of developing a BT with minimal hydro force, maximal net lift, and no redundancy of compartments. The method of determining the main dimensions of the BT, namely the length and the outer diameter, was outlined. A series of investigations was conducted for a West Africa FSHR BT design, and the effect of the ratio of the length to the outer diameter （L/D） on the hydrodynamics and the weight of the BT was discussed. The methodology of designing the internal structure of the BT was presented. The effects of the number of compartments and the dimension of the inner stem on the BT weight and strength were compared. The relationship between inner structure and the number one index of the BT as well as the riser＇s top tension factor （TTF） were illustrated for normal operating conditions and conditions with one or more compartments （or inner stem） damaged. A design instance was given in this paper, when L/D is 4-6, the BT weight and the drag force are compromised. When the BT is divided into 10 compartments, the riser TTF will reach the maximum value, and the ratio of the stem OD to shell OD is about 0.3. A global strength analysis method of the BT and the main load case matrix was also included in the paper, together with the local strength analysis of the buoyancy tank＇s pad-eye assembly.

A New Simulation Model for Recoil Analysis of Deep-Water Drilling Risers After Emergency Disconnection

The recoil response of a deep-water drilling riser following an ED(Emergency Disconnection)scenario is a transient and sensitive process.The recoiling displacement of the riser is the resultant of recoil motion and axial stretch.How-ever,it is typically represented by one variable in recoil simulations.As axial deformation is quite small compared with axial motion in the recoil process,it inevitably introduces numerical errors(i.e.,a large number annihilating a small number).Thus,it is hard to perform a quantitative analysis of axial deformation,although a consensus initial deformation is essential for recoil dynamics.Moreover,the triggered axial natural modes have never been examined before.In this study,the recoil response is decomposed into two parts:recoil motion and axial deformation,and a novel model is developed by Galerkin method.It has demonstrated that the initial stretch has a significant effect at the initial stage in recoil.The existing models underestimate the effects of axial deformation.The new model can capture information of triggered natural modes and figure out the modes undergoing dynamic compression.This study can be beneficial to overpull setting,determination of ED time and anti-recoil control optimization.

Deformation and Stress Analysis of the Deepwater Steel Lazy Wave Riser Subjected to Internal Solitary Waves

The dynamic response of the steel lazy wave riser(SLWR)subjected to the internal solitary wave is a key to assessing its application feasibility.The innovation of this paper is to study the dynamic response properties of the SLWR with large deformation characteristics under internal wave excitation.A numerical scheme of the SLWR is constructed using the slender-rod theory,and the internal solitary wave(ISW)with a two-layer seawater model is simulated by the extended Korteweg-deVries equation.The finite element method combined with the Newmark-βmethod is applied to discretize the equations and update the time integration.The ISW excitation combined with vessel motion on the dynamic deformation and stress of the SLWR is investigated,and extensive simulations of the ISW parameters,including the interface depth ratio and density difference,are carried out.Case calculation reveals that the displacement of the riser in the lower interface layer increases significantly under the ISW excitation,and the stresses at a part of both ends grow evidently.Moreover,the mean value of riser responses under a combination of vessel motion and ISW coincides with the ISW-induced ones.Furthermore,the dynamic responses along the whole riser,including the displacement amplitudes,bending moment amplitudes,and stress amplitudes,almost increase with the increase in interface depth ratios and density differences.

Response Characteristics of Flexible Risers in Offshore Compressed Air Energy Storage Systems

With the rapid development of marine renewable energy technologies, the demand to mitigate the fluctuation of variable generators with energy storage technologies continues to increase. Offshore compressed air energy storage (OCAES) is a novel flexible-scale energy storage technology that is suitable for marine renewable energy storage in coastal cities, islands, offshore platforms, and offshore renewable energy farms. For deep-water applications, a marine riser is necessary for connecting floating platforms and subsea systems. Thus, the response characteristics of marine risers are of great importance for the stability and safety of the entire OCAES system. In this study, numerical models of two kinds of flexible risers, namely, catenary riser and lazy wave riser, are established in OrcaFlex software. The static and dynamic characteristics of the catenary and the lazy wave risers are analyzed under different environment conditions and internal pressure levels. A sensitivity analysis of the main parameters affecting the lazy wave riser is also conducted. Results show that the structure of the lazy wave riser is more complex than the catenary riser;nevertheless, the former presents better response performance.