Processing method and governing parameters for horizontal wave impact loads on a semi-submersible

Semi-submersible platform has been widely used in offshore oil exploitation due to its excellent performance, but can be attacked by wave impact loads in extreme ocean environments. Determining wave impact loads accurately is of great significance to the design and operation of offshore structures. An experimental study was carried out to investigate the critical governing parameters for the horizontal wave impact loads on a semi-submersible. The wavelet denoising technique and the frequency response function method are employed successfully to remove the effect of noise and dynamic contamination from the experimental data. The strongly nonlinear characteristics of the wave impact load are demonstrated. The results show that wave impact events are governed by the upwell height and upwell velocity. Most major wave impact events occur where both the two parameters are large, and the upwell velocity is more dominant in the wave impact process. In general, larger parameters tend to result in larger peak pressures and higher probabilities of wave impacts. The motion behaviors of the platform are benefit to reduce the occurrence probabilities of wave impact events and maximum impact pressures, owing to the escape velocities following the wave direction and the rotations leading to the above-water structure away from the waves. The insights given in this study provide a motivation and foundation for developing a sophisticated prediction model of the wave impact load on floating platforms.