Experimental investigation on the influence of interceptor plate on the motion performance of a cylindrical FPSO

In offshore locations with harsh environment, the operation of cylindrical floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) becomes more challenging. Poor motion performance can severely affect the structural safety, mooring system's strength and riser's operation. Therefore, interceptor plate installation above the cylindrical heaveplate is proposed in order to improve FPSO's motion performance especially in heave responses. A set of 1:100 scale model experiments were carried out in the University of Strathclyde’s Hydrodynamics Laboratory tank. The main objective of this study is to investigate the influence of the proposed interceptor plate on the motion performance of a cylindrical FPSO for different interceptor plate geometrical parameterssuch as height and location. The results of this study show that double face interceptor plate installation can reduce the peak responses of heave RAO by about 50% and pitch by about 67% compared to the FPSO model without interceptor plate. Also the fundamental heave and pitch natural frequencies can reduce by about 11% for the same case.