Identification of the most robust and economical LS-DYNA shell element for simulation of full scale Ship to Offshore Platform Collision (STOPC)

Abstract

This thesis studies the current body of literature surrounding marine vessel to offshore structure collisions with focus toward the collision energy losses, forces, structural mechanisms at play and total resulting structural damages. The primary focus of this thesis is to determine the effectiveness, efficiency, and usability of various element formulations through full scale simulation of ship to offshore structure collisions (STOPCs). This will be performed through simulation of the collision event using various shell element formulations and comparing their results accuracy, and computer resource and CPU consumptions. It was found that element formulation 16 within LS-DYNA was the most robust element formulation available within LS-DYNA for performing full scale STOPC platform collisions. It was also determined through these studies that running full scale collision analyses using the LS-DYNA implicit-explicit solver option is far more efficient than running equivalent analysis fully explicitly.