Characteristics of Floating Arrays from Aligned to Staggered Patterns

Abstract

In nature, staggered structures, such as knitted baskets and brick patterns in the structure of buildings, always exhibit the feature of structural reinforcement. Can floating arrays become more dynamically stationary if floating modules of an array are interconnected in a staggered pattern rather than in an aligned pattern? This work examined the dynamic characteristics of staggered floating arrays. A floating array with 12 identical semisubmersible modules in a 3×4 configuration was used to study the effects of staggered structure on the dynamic characteristics of floating systems. A network modeling method considering the geometric effect of connectors was used to establish the analysis model. The numerical analysis was conducted in three main aspects. First, the impact of the staggered deployment of modules on the stiffness feature of the floating structure was investigated. Subsequently, the variation of the stability of floating array with increasing staggered displacement was studied, and the corresponding dynamic mechanism is discussed in detail. Furthermore, the characteristic transition of the floating array evolving from aligned pattern to brick-pattern with different staggered displacements is studied. The numerical results demonstrate that the staggered deployment of modules could increase the floating system’s stiffness along the longitudinal direction and improve the stability of heave and pitch motions near the head wave. This work could provide guidelines for the configuration design of floating islands for optimal ocean space utilization.