Coastal challengesThe Impact of Extreme Waves on Offshore Structures
Strong storms can trigger steep, breaking waves that slam into platforms and wind turbines with tremendous force. Scientists are studying the behavior of offshore structures subjected to these kinds of waves. Their goal is to increase safety at sea.
The force of waves slamming into offshore rigs, wind turbine pillars, ships or other offshore structures can do an enormous amount of damage.
One of the fundamental – and unresolved – problems with designing these kinds of large structures is being able to predict exactly how they will react to extreme stresses. What exactly is the load from the force of powerful waves slamming into structures?
Solving these challenges will be a major step towards safer and more cost-effective marine operations.
Interaction between Load and Load Effect
“It’s crucial to understand the mutual interaction between the impacting wave and the response of the structure,” says Rene Kaufmann.
Kaufmann is a postdoctoral fellow at the NTNU SIMLab (Structural Impact Laboratory) and one of the researchers in the SLADE KPN project. This is a Knowledge-building Project for Industry (KPN) funded by the Research Council of Norway, in which researchers from SINTEF Ocean and NTNU are collaborating on basic research.
The overall goal is to increase the safety at sea.
Building Bridges and Better Design
It’s important to expand what’s known about these challenges, but that will require systematic experimental studies of wave-impact scenarios. The project will do exactly that, which should allow researchers to figure out how a structure’s behavior interacts with the loads that are applied to it.
The researchers are developing experimental methods to measure this interaction. Better calculation methods can help the industry when new offshore structures are designed.
Kaufmann’s focus is measuring the impact of local surface deformations from massive loads.
One important aspect of Kaufmann’s research is to make sure the measuring equipment itself doesn’t affect the structure’s properties. Researchers at SIMLab have used their experience with camera-based techniques to measure the structural response to loads from impacts and explosions.
But more on that later. First we’re heading out on a trip out into the Norwegian Sea.
“Huge Wave on Its Way”
The monster horizontal waves that can slam violently against ships and other structures at sea originate from what are called 100-year storms.
In 1995, the offshore platform “Draugen” was put to a serious test at the Halten Bank area, on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. On 12 March, a hurricane swept through the Norwegian Sea, and platform manager Magne Gundersen received an unexpected phone call from the Aberdeen Weather Center.
