OFFSHORE FACILITIES: CONSTRUCTION AND DESIGN

Chain Failure by Bending

on Deepwater Mooring Systems

The premature rupture of mooring chains

of the Girassol buoy after only a half-year
of service was caused by bending fatigue
of the first free chain link inside the chain
hawse (fairlead). Although the mooring
system had been designed according to off-
shore industry standards, it failed because
of this bending-fatigue mode. A study of
this bending phenomenon led to a redesign
of both the top chain segment size and the
hawse connection, which now includes a
new chain-connecting arm (CCA). A new
method was developed to estimate the
fatigue damage in the chain subjected to
bending, which was used to design a new
CCA for the Girassol buoy.

Introduction
The Girassol loading buoy was installed in
September 2001 at the Girassol oil field off-
shore Angola in 1350-m water depth. The
buoy allows export, by use of two midwater
16-in. export lines, of the stabilized crude
oil processed onboard the floating produc-
tion, storage, and offloading vessel, moored
1 naut mile away.
The buoy is anchored to the seabed by
means of three groups of three anchor
legs. Before the incident, the anchor legs
comprised collinear segments of 81-mm
studded chains and 130-mm-diameter
polyester ropes. Within each group, the
legs are spread 5° apart, and the group
centers are spread 120° apart. The chain
segments are at the upper and lower ends
of the anchor legs.
This article, written by Technology Editor
Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper
OTC 17238, “Failure of Chains by Bending
on Deepwater Mooring Systems,” by P. Jean,
Single Buoy Moorings Inc.; K. Goessens, Total
E&P Angola; and D. L’Hostis, DV Offshore,
prepared for the 2005 Offshore Technology
Conference, Houston, 2–5 May. Copyright
2005 Offshore Technology Conference.
Reproduced by permission.
Fig. 1—Girassol buoy elevation view and location of failed link.
In May 2002, 235 days after buoy instal-
lation, one group of anchor legs (B4, B5,
and B6) broke almost simultaneously, fol-
lowed 1 month later by the rupture of
another anchor leg (B1).
The ruptures in Anchor Legs B4, B6,
and B1 occurred at exactly the same loca-
tion—at the fifth link of the upper chain
segment connected to the buoy inside a
standard-type curved chain hawse—while
Leg B5 broke in the upper rope segment.
This rope-segment rupture was caused pri-
marily by an earlier accidental cut of the
rope through two-thirds of its section. The
total rupture of Leg B5 followed the rupture
of Legs B4 and B6 as a result of load transfer.
However, the fifth link of Leg B5 was found
severely cracked, thus confirming the same
failure mechanism for all four legs.
Studies identified the root cause as the
out-of-plane bending (OPB) stress (fatigue
stress), combined with tension variations,
occurring mainly in the fifth link inside
the chain hawses. As Fig. 1 shows, Link 5
is the first link to oscillate with respect to
the Link 4, which is fixed onto the internal
curved shape of the chain hawse.
OPB Failure Mechanism
Unlike a rod, a chain can be piled or laid in
any shape, thus a chain usually is thought
of as not having bending stiffness. In most
cases, the tension in a chain is so low that
the links can roll or slide on each other to
accommodate the rotations imposed at the
ends of the chain by the floating body.
Rolling Mode. As with any articulation,
when the tension in the chain increases, it
will become increasingly difficult to obtain
rotation between successive links. If the
contact surfaces between the links were
perfectly cylindrical, a rolling mechanism
would still be possible even for high ten-
sions. Small bending stresses would be
generated because of the displacement of
the point of application of the tension away
from the plane of symmetry of the link.
These rolling stresses can be calculated ana-
lytically, but they are too small to explain
the fast failure at Girassol.
Locking Mode. In the chain-manufactur-
ing process, a proof load (between 65 and
80% of breaking load) is applied to all

The full-length paper is available for purchase from the OTC Library: www.otcnet.org. The paper has not been peer reviewed.

72 JPT • FEBRUARY 2006

Fig. 2—Contact surface of 40-mm lab-
oratory test chain.
links. Plastic/elastic finite-element analysis
(FEA) of two links has shown that, under
a tension equal to proof load, the surface
of contact between the two links is perma-
nently deformed. The theoretical point of
contact becomes a surface with an ellipti-
cal shape, typically one-fourth the size of
the chain diameter (Fig. 2). The surface
of contact has been observed on all chain
links inspected.
Once this surface is formed, the chain
links can no longer roll and the links are
locked. If a rotation is imposed on one
chain link, the complete chain will have to
bend like a rod. FEA shows that most of the
bending deformation occurs at the contact
surface between links. The stresses gener-
ated by this bending are large and can easily
explain the fast failure at Girassol.
An OPB moment is generated in the link
when a rotation is imposed on the chain
end and the links cannot roll on each other.
OPB refers hereafter to the bending of a
chain link out of its main plane (that con-
taining the oval shape). It is caused by the
application of transverse forces and OPB
moments that are resisted by reaction forces
spread over the contact between links.
Each wave excites the buoy in roll and
pitch. These rotations are imposed on the
top chain through the chain hawse, and
bending stresses are generated for each
wave cycle. It is the accumulation of these
bending stresses that cause the propaga-
tion of cracks in chain, ultimately causing
failure. On Girassol, the combination of
constant swell excitation with high tension
led to a rapid failure. The photographs of
the failed links on Girassol in Fig. 3 show
that the fracture surfaces are consistent
with bending.
To calculate the fatigue life of chain
undergoing bending cycles, the authors
propose the following.
• Calculate the long-term distribution of
chain-hawse angles.
• Obtain long-term distributions of bend-
ing stresses by use of a bending-stress vs.
chain-hawse-angle curve.
JPT • FEBRUARY 2006
Fig. 3—Failed Link 5 on Leg B6 of the
Girassol buoy.
• Use an appropriate “S-N” curve to cal-
culate fatigue damage.
• Combine tension and bending stresses
or damages.
OPB Fatigue Damage
It is possible to determine the OPB-fatigue
damage from the formula for OPB stress
in chain knowing the chain diameter,
tension, and imposed fairlead-angle long-
term distribution. By applying this meth-
odology and comparing failure times with
Girassol-failure durations, it was found
that the Det Norske Veritas (DNV) “B1”
curve (for forged elements) is appropriate.
The new design used a safety factor of 10
because OPB is a new problem requiring
more investigation.
Remedial Solution:
Rod-Connecting Arms (RCAs)
To make sure that the top chains would not
fail again on Girassol, the root causes of the
failure were addressed as follows.
• Reduce the bending moment at the
chain-hawse connection by use of low-fric-
tion bushings, double articulations, and
long lever arms between the first chain
link and articulation axes. Reducing the
bending moment directly reduces the bend-
ing stresses.
• Use a dual-articulation RCA because
the motions of the buoy result in bending
both in the mooring-line plane and trans-
verse to the mooring-line plane.
• Improve chain cathodic protection
to prevent crack/pit initiation and reduce
fatigue-crack growth rate.
• Reduce tension to reduce OPB stresses.
• Increase top-chain diameter in the
first links subjected to a significant OPB
moment.
By use of the OPB-stress formulas pre-
sented in the full-length paper, a safe con-
nection between the buoy and the chain
was designed. The new RCA is shown in
Fig. 4. The chain and RCA are designed
for a 20-year life, accounting for combined
Fig. 4—Girassol RCA mounting on
buoy.
tension and OPB fatigue with a safety
factor larger than 10. The curved chain
stoppers with only one articulation were
replaced offshore with the new RCAs in
May 2004.
Conclusion
Vessel rotations applied to a chain under
high tension can lead to high OPB stresses
in the first links close to the chain hawse.
These OPB stresses led to the failure of
four chains on the Girassol buoy. Lessons
learned from recovered failed links, labora-
tory tests, and analytical analysis call for a
change of practice in the industry.
New rules should include a design
method to account for OPB stresses in
chains. Sufficient data must be gathered
to improve understanding of stresses in
chains under high tensions. Comparison
between this method and FEA work is
very encouraging. OPB-stress vs. inter-
link-angle curves presented in the paper
were confirmed with FEA. A combination
of FEA (plastic/elastic with contact) and
laboratory tests could be used to prepare
guidelines for designers.
The appropriate “S-N” curve is difficult
to select. The DNV “B1-2 stdv” curve can
be used for new deepwater-buoy designs.
The selection of this curve is supported
by the consistency between the calculated
and actual failure times of Girassol chain
(four failure points). Nevertheless, use of
this curve predicts OPB failure on other
systems such as Kuito buoy. Kuito chains
have been inspected after 4 years of ser-
vice, and no fatigue cracks were found.
Chain-failure tests are under way on
Girassol curved- and Kuito straight-
chain-hawse designs. The purpose of
these tests is to clarify if the curved chain
hawse enhanced the OPB problem. If con-
firmed by the tests, the method will be
refined to account for effect of a curved
chain hawse. Then, a less conservative
“S-N” curve and/or stress-vs.-angle curve
for chain bending will be derived from the
test results. JPT
73