Integrated Design and Analysis Consultants (IDAC) said it has successfully simulated the lower fairleads on a floating production storage offloading (FPSO) vessel by employing a Finite Element (FE) Analysis software, ANSYS.
A routine inspection on the Chevron operated Captain FPSO, identified an integrity issue on one of the vessels’ eight fairleads, with one of the bolts connecting the gypsy wheel shaft to the skirt of the fairlead being missing.
IDAC then retrofitted all fairleads on the Captain FPSO with an axle pin retaining shaft delivered by Whittaker Engineering, which was found to improve the overall integrity of the design.
IDAC conducted structural analyses on the Fairlead design, to determine the cause of a failure in the bolts and evaluate the work necessary to extend the life of the Captain FPSO Fairleads.
Finite Element (FE) analysis results revealed the very likely cause of the bolts failure and also demonstrated that the retrofitted design would decrease the problem though not sufficient on its own.
The analysis illustrated the load transfer through the fairlead from chain to the fairlead bearings and how this load path drastically changed with out of plane loads.
IDAC stated the analysis has helped in addressing a localized problem apart from improving the overall design.
