EXPERIMENTAL STUDIES ON DYNAMIC RESPONSE BEHAVIOR OF MULTI-LEGGED ARTICULATED TOWER

Articulated towers consist of surface piercing columns pinned to sea floor and have increased applications in deep water oil exploration. Vital component is the buoyant shaft connected to sea bed through a universal joint. Design methodologies of these towers ensure reduced motion characteristics with less deck acceleration while loads at the articulated joint are kept to minimum; this is required to establish sufficient stability under working conditions. A Scaled model of a multi-legged articulated tower is experimentally investigated under regular and random waves. Influence of different parameters on the tower response, namely, deck load and wave approach angle are examined in detail. Apart from having increased, deck area, multi-legged articulated towers showed controlled dynamic response behavior under environmental loads. Conclusions drawn from the study bring a detailed insight to the design of such platforms. Though few observations inferred from the study are not new, important dynamic response characteristics like bending stress variations are quantified through experimental investigations.