These features are highly applicable in our FPSO package, Nauticus Hull and Common Structural Rules. Using the new modelling techniques in GeniE, will give significant man-hour savings.

With the latest developments in GeniE, our users can save a signi-ficant amount of man-hours and expect increased productivity when adding compartments to a model for structural or hydrodynamic analysis.

A floating structure such as, for example, a semi-submersible, FPSO, barge or ship, has compartments that need to be part of a model intended for hydrostatic or hydrodynamic analysis. The work required to include such compartments (or tanks) is normally time-consuming as the modelling tasks require so much user input.

However, when using the most recent features in GeniE, this process is far more automated, and a significant amount of man-hours may be saved. In addition, GeniE will create the compart-ments for all closed volumes in the model, making the process more efficient. Changing a model by, for example, moving a watertight bulkhead or by specifying a bulkhead as non-watertight will result in an automatic update of the compartment configuration.

In the latest version of GeniE, the user can very easily load the compartments with concept loads such as, for example, ballast, oil or ore. There is no need to manually specify the surface loads or to adjust the finite element mesh inside the compartments (or tanks); these loads are automatically applied to the analysis model based on type of concept load and filling height (or fractions for height or volume). For ore, the user can also specify the shape function on top of the ore filling.

Together with the latest features for modelling (structure and load application) of curved structures, it is now possible to create models intended typically for global strength analysis, cargo hold models for strength analysis and models intended for hydrostatic or hydrodynamic analysis. These models may include effects from compartments either in the form of pressures for static analysis or masses for dynamic considerations.

Some of the new features are illustrated, explaining how easy it is to model curved structure (plates and stiffeners),compartment definition (dynamic update during changes) and specification of compartment content (including automatic pressure surface loads).

Fig. 1

Fig. 1 shows one way of modelling parts of a ship; this technique may also be used to model similar parts on other floating vessels. Large parts of a regular structure may be modelled using features for 2D modelling and extrude functionality. This example illustrates the outer parts of a 2D frame during an extrude operation along a predefined line (or curve); in this case ‘Sweep_line”.

Fig. 2

The next step during modelling may be to add more details to the 2D frame. As illustrated in Fig. 2, cut-outs are easily made using guiding lines and automatic fillet options. GeniE will automatically find a fillet curve between two straight lines and the user may change the default value; in this case manually set to 0.7 metres

Fg. 3

A 2D profile may easily be copied togother positions and more details added to the model. In Fig. 3, you can see how the corner profile has been copied to several positions. Furthermore, additional stiffeners have been inserted using features for automatic flushing to plate sides. The stiffener profiles are, in this case, imported from the in-built profile library.

Fig. 4

GeniE will now make one compartment (yellow) for the above structure – the volume between the highlighted plates is closed and a compartment is formed. By replacing a permeable plate with a watertight one, two compartments are thus automatically created, as shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 5

The remaining task to complete the load application is to specify the type of compartment content and the filling degree. The example in Fig. 5 shows two bottom tanks and a centre tank filled with ballast water (blue), oil (yellow) and ore (brown). The tanks have been loaded with different filling heights (or filling fractions). Some parts have been removed for better visibility.

The compartments and content specification are documented in an automatically generated report intended for viewing in Microsoft Word or Excel (or OpenOffice if this is your preferred office system). In this report, you will typically find information about tank volume, centre of gravity, mass of content, total forces acting and so on.