Study on Collision Characters for SPAR Platform

This paper presents the research on the external mechanism of collision characters for a SPAR platform. The collision characters of SPAR platform have not attracted so much attention as that of ships in the past, because short of this kind of collision accidents reported. But with the increasing number of SPAR platforms in the world, the possibility of such kind of accident also increases. Therefore, it is necessary to master the character of SPAR collision. Model test technique is employed to study the external mechanism. The collision scenario is a ship colliding with a SPAR platform moored in the site with 1500 meters water depth. The striking ship hits the SPAR platform on the hard tank near water surface in its longitudinal direction. The specifics of the SPAR's motions and the tension forces of the mooring lines are collected to summarize the hydrodynamic characters in the collision scenario. It is found that the maximal displacements and the maximal pitch angles of the SPAR platform, and the maximal tension forces of mooring lines are all linearly proportional to the initial velocity of the striking ship basically. Mooring lines play elastic roles in the collision course.