Flexible segment model （FSM） is adopted for the dynamics calculation of marine cable being laid. In FSM, the cable is divided into a number of flexible segments, and nonlinear governing equations are listed according to the moment equilibriums of the segments. Linearization iteration scheme is employed to obtain the numerical solution for the governing equations. For the cable being laid, the payout rate is calculated from the velocities of all segments. The numerical results are shown of the dynamic motion and tension of marine cables being laid during velocity change of the mother vessels.
The dynamic calculations of slender marine risers, such as Finite Element Method （FEM） or Modal Expansion Solution Method （MESM）, are mainly for the slender structures with their both ends hinged to the surface and bottom. However, for the re-entry operation, risers held by vessels are in vertical free hanging state, so the displacement and velocity of lower joint would not be zero. For the model of free hanging flexible marine risers, the paper proposed a Finite Difference Approximation （FDA） method for its dynamic calculation. The riser is divided into a reasonable number of rigid discrete segments. And the dynamic model is established based on simple Euler-Bemoulli Beam Theory concerning tension, shear forces and bending moments at each node along the cylindrical structures, which is extendible for different boundary conditions. The governing equations with specific boundary conditions for riser＇s free hanging state are simplified by Keller-box method and solved with Newton iteration algorithm for a stable dynamic solution. The calculation starts when the riser is vertical and still in calm water, and its behavior is obtained along time responding to the lateral forward motion at the top. The dynamic behavior in response to the lateral parametric excitation at the top is also proposed and discussed in this paper.
The steady state solution of long slender marine structures simply indicates the steady motion response to the excitation at top of the structure.It is very crucial especially for deep towing systems to find out how the towed body and towing cable work under certain towing speed.This paper has presented a direct algorithm using Runge-Kutta method for steady-state solution of long slender cylindrical structures and compared to the time iteration calculation;the direct algorithm spends much less time than the time-iteration scheme.Therefore, the direct algorithm proposed in this paper is quite efficient in providing credible reference for marine engineering applications.
Under complex currents, the motion governing equations of marine cables are complex and nonlinear, and the calculations of cable configuration and tension become difficult compared with those under the uniform or simple currents. To obtain the numerical results, the usual Newton-Raphson iteration is often adopted, but its stability depends on the initial guessed solution to the governing equations. To improve the stability of numerical calculation, this paper proposed separated the particle swarm optimization, in which the variables are separated into several groups, and the dimension of search space is reduced to facilitate the particle swarm optimization. Via the separated particle swarm optimization, these governing nonlinear equations can be solved successfully with any initial solution, and the process of numerical calculation is very stable. For the calculations of cable configuration and tension of marine cables under complex currents, the proposed separated swarm particle optimization is more effective than the other particle swarm optimizations.
