On the Static Stability and Seakeeping Performance of a Submerged Floating Tunnel Module in Wet Tow

A case study is conducted for a submerged floating tunnel module (SFTM) in wet tow conditions. Inspired by the successful wet tow operations of spar platforms, a wet tow scenario is examined where a tunnel module, floating horizontally with a half-diameter draft, is towed by tugboats using towlines....

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ikjae Lee, Chungkuk Jin, Sung-Jae Kim, Moohyun Kim
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-01-01
Series:Journal of Marine Science and Engineering
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/13/1/77
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:A case study is conducted for a submerged floating tunnel module (SFTM) in wet tow conditions. Inspired by the successful wet tow operations of spar platforms, a wet tow scenario is examined where a tunnel module, floating horizontally with a half-diameter draft, is towed by tugboats using towlines. To evaluate the static stability of the SFTM during wet tow, numerical static offset tests are performed at varying tow speeds to determine the equivalent system stiffness. These static offset tests consider surge, sway, roll, and yaw motions. Statistical analyses are subsequently performed based on the encounter-frequency approximation with varying equivalent stiffnesses. The most probable extreme motion analysis for 3 h under sea state 4 (<inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msub><mi>H</mi><mi>S</mi></msub><mo>=</mo><mn>2.44</mn><mtext> </mtext><mi mathvariant="normal">m</mi></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula> and <inline-formula><math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" display="inline"><semantics><mrow><msub><mi>T</mi><mi>P</mi></msub><mo>=</mo><mn>8.1</mn><mtext> </mtext><mi mathvariant="normal">s</mi></mrow></semantics></math></inline-formula>) shows that the beam sea condition causes the largest heave (0.6 m), and the stern sea (30 deg.) leads to the largest yaw response (0.85 deg.), which is likely to cause an instantaneous decrease in towing stability.
ISSN:2077-1312