The OrcaFlex Blog

This article proposes some possible changes that we are considering, to the way OrcaFlex treats the water inside a hollow spar buoy, i.e. where a spar buoy object in an OrcaFlex model has a non-zero ID specified for one or more of its cylinders. We would welcome feedback from OrcaFlex users (and potential users) on whether the change that we are considering would be a useful.

The existing OrcaFlex treatment of hollow spar buoys is aimed at modelling hollow axi-symmetric structures that flood and drain very freely in the axial direction. But it is less suitable for hollow objects that do not flood and drain so easily, and these proposals aim to address this.

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Many of the software support questions we receive concern statics convergence. Before the release of OrcaFlex 9.0 we would regularly employ a host of methods to deal with stubborn cases. The problem cases would usually involve 6D Buoys.

OrcaFlex 9.0 introduced a new statics method called Whole System Statics (WSS) which provides a great leap forward in terms of robustness and speed of convergence. Practically all support queries relating to statics convergence are now solved by switching to use WSS. So what makes WSS so much better than the old method?

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Orcina have recently carried out a validation of the way OrcaFlex handles buoyancy forces and pipe internal contents pressure effects, and the resulting effective tension and wall tension that OrcaFlex reports. We have validated these OrcaFlex results against results presented in Nigel Barltrop’s well-respected book “Dynamics of Floating Structures: a guide for design and analysis. Volume 2″. The OrcaFlex results matched the Barltrop results very well, confirming that OrcaFlex models buoyancy and internal pressure effects correctly.

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Welcome to our new OrcaFlex Blog!

We’ve been contemplating writing a blog for some time now and have finally decided to take the plunge. The idea is to try to encourage the development of the OrcaFlex community. Our annual User Group Meetings are a big part of this, but a blog can be more immediate and interactive. There are hundreds of active OrcaFlex users in the world and we hope that this blog will help bring them closer together.

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