Response of triceratops to impact forces: Numerical investigations

Triceratops is one of the new generations of offshore compliant platforms suitable for ultra-deepwater applications. Apart from environmental loads, the offshore structures are also susceptible to accidental loads. Due to the increase in the risk of collision between ships and offshore platforms, the accurate prediction of structural response under impact loads becomes necessary. This paper presents the numerical investigations of the impact response of the buoyant leg of triceratops usually designed as an orthogonally stiffened cylindrical shell with stringers and ring frames. The impact analysis of buoyant leg with a rectangularly shaped indenter is carried out using ANSYS explicit analysis solver under different impact load cases. The results show that the shell deformation increases with the increase in impact load, and the ring stiffeners hinder the shell damage from spreading in the longitudinal direction. The response of triceratops is then obtained through hydrodynamic response analysis carried out using ANSYS AQWA. From the results, it is observed that the impact load on single buoyant leg causes periodic vibration in the deck in the surge and pitch degrees of freedom. Since the impact response of the structure is highly affected by the geometric and material properties, numerical studies are also carried out by varying the strain rate, and the location of the indenter and the results are discussed.