Optimized design of statically equivalent mooring systems

Due to size limitations of wave basins worldwide it is necessary to employ statically equivalent mooring and riser systems to test floating oil and gas drilling, production and storage facilities to be deployed in deep and ultra-deep waters. Heuristic search techniques appear to be best suited for the design optimization because of the nonlinear behavior of the catenary mooring lines and risers, the large number of independent variables and constraints involved in the design, and the multi-dimensional objective function. A procedure for the optimized design of the statically equivalent mooring system using a Genetic Algorithm is investigated using, as an example case, a semisubmersible with a symmetric polyester mooring system.