Fatigue damage induced by nonGaussian bimodal wave loading in mooring lines

Catenary mooring lines are typically subjected to bimodal loads, comprising of a wave frequency (WF) component due to the first-order wave forces and a low frequency (LF) component induced by the second-order wave forces. For moored vessels, the LF forces due to current and wind also play a role. Only dynamic wave loads are considered herein, while current and wind loads are modeled as constant forces. Because of the nonlinearities of the mooring line characteristics, the dynamic line tension and the second-order responses, both the WF and LF line tensions are in principle nonGaussian. These facts make it difficult to estimate the combined fatigue damage of mooring lines in the frequency domain. A fatigue combination rule based on the Jiao and Moan’s theory has been extended to cover the nonGaussian case. The purpose of this paper is to improve and validate the frequency-domain method by time-domain analysis based on a simplified, but accurate mechanical model of the dynamic line tension. Improvements on the LF and combined fatigue damage estimation have been made by considering the nonsymmetrical property of the LF line tension distribution. Both the WF and LF mooring line tensions due to wave loading have been simulated in the time domain for different sea states and the combined fatigue damage has been estimated by using the rainflow cycle counting algorithm. The accuracy of the frequency-domain method for estimating the bimodal nonGaussian fatigue damage of mooring lines has been verified by the time-domain simulations and is considered to be acceptable.