SEMI-SUBMERSIBLE HUB PLATFORM WITH AN INTERNAL DOCK MODEL TESTING Edgard Borges Malta TPN - Numerical Offshore Tank Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering University of Sao Paulo Sao Paulo, Brazil edgard@tpn.usp.br Felipe Ruggeri TPN - Numerical Offshore Tank Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering University of Sao Paulo Sao Paulo, Brazil felipe.ruggeri@tpn.usp.br Pedro Cardozo de Mello TPN - Numerical Offshore Tank Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering University of Sao Paulo Sao Paulo, Brazil pedro.mello@tpn.usp.br Eduardo M. Vilame ´ a E&P Department PETROBRAS Rio de Janeiro, Brazil eduardo.vilamea@petrobras.com.br Allan C. de Oliveira R&D Department PETROBRAS Rio de Janeiro, Brazil allan carre@petrobras.com.br Kazuo Nishimoto TPN - Numerical Offshore Tank Department of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering University of Sao Paulo Sao Paulo, Brazil kazuo@tpn.usp.br ABSTRACT The recent discoveries and development of the Pre-salt reservoir in Brazilian coast require a new logistical model for crew transportation and transhipment to the drilling and oil rigs due to the large distance from coast, harsh environment conditions and large amount of workers to be transported against the actual model adopted considering only transportation by helicopters in order to reduce overall costs. The adoption of a logistic model with maritime transportation in these scenarios could provide several advantages, however there are several challenges from the technical point of view in transhipment between ship-shaped vessels, that could represent a great limitation in terms of operational window. Previous works showed the feasibility of monocolumn platforms with an internal moonpool as a Logistic HUB [1], allowing the boat docking in sheltered conditions. This work shows an overview of the model testing of a semi-submersible with an internal dock and the comparison of the free-surface elevation and RAOs (Response Amplitude Operators) between experimental results and potential flow computations. The tests were performed for 5 headings considering 10 regular, 5 irregular and 1 transient waves under a single draft and 5 different devices to reduce wave energy in the interior region. INTRODUCTION The semi-submersible platform concept was developed as possible solution for deepwater offshore scenarios far from the coast under harsh environmental conditions. This platform can be applied as an offshore passenger hub in order to attend the huge passengers transport demand to production and drilling platforms in pre-sal reservoir in Brazilian coast. The transportation to offshore platforms has been performed by helicopter, which will be a very expensive solution for the high demand of passengers predicted in the next years, motivating Proceedings of the ASME 2014 33rd International Conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering OMAE2014 June 8-13, 2014, San Francisco, California, USA OMAE2014-24418 1 Copyright © 2014 by ASME