Vessel/mooring/riser coupled dynamic analysis of a turret-moored FPSO compared with OTRC experiment M.H. Kim a, * , B.J. Koo a,1 , R.M. Mercier b,2 , E.G. Ward b,3 a Ocean Engineering Program, Department of Civil Engineering, Texas A&M University, Texas, College Station, TX 77843-3136, USA b Offshore Technology Research Center, College Station, TX 77845, USA Received 9 July 2004; accepted 22 December 2004 Available online 7 April 2005 Abstract A vessel/mooring/riser coupled dynamic analysis program in time domain is developed for the global motion simulation of a turret-moored, tanker based FPSO designed for 6000-ft water depth. The vessel and line dynamics are solved simultaneously in a combined matrix for the given environmental and boundary conditions. The vessel global motions and mooring tension are tested at the OTRC wave basin for the non-parallel wind–wave–current 100-year hurricane condition in the Gulf of Mexico. The same case is also numerically simulated using the developed coupled dynamic analysis program. The numerical results are compared with the OTRC 1:60 model-testing results with truncated mooring system. The system’s stiffness and line tension as well as natural periods and damping obtained from the OTRC measurement reasonably match with numerically simulated static-offset and free-decay tests. The numerically predicted global vessel motions are also in good agreement with the measurements. Ocean Engineering 32 (2005) 1780–1802 www.elsevier.com/locate/oceaneng 0029-8018/$ - see front matter q 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.oceaneng.2004.12.013 * Corresponding author. Tel.: C1 979 847 8710; fax: C1 979 862 8162. E-mail addresses: m-kim3@tamu.edu (M.H. Kim), bonjun@tamu.edu (B.J. Koo), rsmercier@tamu.edu (R.M. Mercier), egward@tamu.edu (E.G. Ward). 1 Tel.: C1 979 845 2231; fax: C 1 979 862 8162. 2 Tel.: C1 979 845 7252; fax: C1 979 845 9273. 3 Tel.: C1 979 862 2288; fax: C1 979 845 9273.