CFD prediction of vortex induced vibrations and fatigue assessment for deepwater marine risers

Abstract

. Using 3D computational fluid dynamics techniques in recent years have shed significant light on the Vortex Induced Vibrations (VIV) encountered by deep-water marine risers. The fatigue damage accumulated due to these vibrations has posed a great concern to the offshore industry. This paper aims to present an algorithm to predict the crossflow and inline fatigue damage for very long (L/D > 10 3 ) marine risers using a Finite-Analytical Navier-Stokes (FANS) technique coupled with a tensioned beam motion solver and rainflow counting fatigue module. Large Eddy Simulation (LES) method has been used to simulate the turbulence in the flow. An overset grid system is employed to mesh the riser geometry and the wake field around the riser. Risers from NDP (2003) and Miami (2006) experiments are used for simulation with uniform, linearly sheared and non-uniform (non-linearly sheared) current profiles. The simulation results including inline and crossflow motion, modal decomposition, spectral densities and fatigue damage rate are compared to the experimental data and useful conclusions are drawn.