Design Wave Analysis for the Extreme Horizontal Slow-Drift Motion of Moored Floating Platforms

In this study, a new design wave analysis method for estimating the extreme slow-drift motion of floating offshore structures is introduced. Here, the design wave refers to the irregular incident wave of short duration that induces the extreme response of desired return period. The present method is composed of following four steps: linearization of the dynamic system, probabilistic analysis of the Volterra series, generation of the design waves, and the fully-coupled nonlinear time-domain simulations. In generating the design waves, the conditioning of the most likely extreme response profile is suggested. The method was applied to a deep-water semi-submersible platform, and the results appeared to be promising compared to the full-length nonlinear simulations.