Effects of Mooring Line Failure on the Wave Frequency Responses of Truss Spar Platforms

Experimental and numerical studies on a typical truss spar with
intact and damaged mooring line conditions are presented.
Physical model motions in surge, heave and pitch in addition to the mooring line tensions were measured. A MATLAB code named TRSPAR was developed for the dynamic analysis of truss spar. The numerical predictions agree very well with the measurements for the two structure conditions. Mooring line failure has shown insignificant effect on the wave frequency responses of the truss spar. However, for relatively low frequency waves, surge responses for mooring damage condition are lower than the corresponding intact mooring condition responses.