Horizontal hydrodynamic coupling between shuttle tanker and FPSO arranged side-by-side

Side-by-side offloading operations are widely utilized in engineering practice. The hydrodynamic interactions between two vessels play a crucial role in safe operation. This study focuses on the coupled effects between two floating bodies positioned side-by-side as a shuttle tanker-FPSO (floating production, storage and offloading) system. Several wave directions with different side-by-side distances are studied in order to obtain the variation tendency of the horizontal hydrodynamic coefficients, motion responses and mean drift forces. It is obtained that the coupled hydrodynamics between two vessels is evidently distinguished from the single body case with shielding and exaggerating effects, especially for sway and yaw directions. The resonance frequency and the peak amplitude are closely related with side-by-side separation distance. In addition, the horizontal hydrodynamics of the shuttle tanker is more susceptible to coupled effects in beam waves. It is suggested to expand the gap distance reasonably in order to reduce the coupled drift forces effectively. Attention should also be paid to the second peaks caused by hydrodynamic coupling. Since the horizontal mean drift forces are the most mainly concerned forces to be counteracted in dynamic positioning (DP) system and mooring system, prudent prediction is beneficial in saving consumed power of DP system and reducing tension of mooring lines.