Motion response analysis of FPSO's CALM buoy offloading system

Catenary anchor legs mooring (CALM) buoy offloading system is widely used in offshore oil and gas exploitation engineering. Proper prediction of the motion response of CALM systems is very important to the fatigue analysis of offloading pipelines and the design of mooring lines. Numerical models of a CALM system in survival and operation conditions will be established in this paper, and motion characteristics of the buoy and its sensibility to environmental factors, as well as performance of slender bodies are derived. More importantly, the shuttle tanker’s stability in plane and the risk of its collision with other floating bodies are focused on in this paper. All of the conclusions will provide recommendation for designing in practical engineering.