The UK Christchurch Bay Compliant Cylinder Project: analysis and interpretation of Morison wave force and response data

The main purpose of the Project was to investigate wave loading on and dynamic response of a compliant (flexible) cylinder in real sea conditions, at a sufficiently large scale (Re > 100,000 with Kc < 26), so that the results would be of value in the design of offshore structures. The present paper concentrates on the Morison forces on the cylinder. The results show that inertia coefficients, when derived from the relative motion form of Morison's equation, are not affected by the cylinder response and hence are consistent with their corresponding values from rigid cylinder studies; but that the drag coefficients increase. The overall conclusion of this paper is that the relative motion form of Morison's equation with appropriate drag and inertia coefficient values can adequately describe the response of a compliant cylinder in random waves. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.