| Summary: | Complex nonlinear and chaotic responses have been recently observed in various
compliant ocean systems. These systems are characterized by a nonlinear mooring
restoring force and a coupled fluid-structure interaction exciting force. A general class
of ocean mooring system models is formulated by incorporating a variable mooring
configuration and the exact form of the hydrodynamic excitation. The multi-degree of
freedom system, subjected to combined parametric and external excitation, is shown to
be complex, coupled and strongly nonlinear.
Stability analysis by a Liapunov function approach reveals global system
attraction which ensures that solutions remain bounded for small excitation.
Construction of the system's Poincare map and stability analysis of the map's fixed
points correspond to system stability of near resonance periodic orbits. Investigation of
nonresonant solutions is done by a local variational approach. Tangent and period
doubling bifurcations are identified by both local stability analysis techniques and are
further investigated to reveal global bifurcations. Application of Melnikov's method to
the perturbed averaged system provides an approximate criterion for the existence of
transverse homoclinic orbits resulting in chaotic system dynamics. Further stability
analysis of the subharmonic and ultraharmonic solutions reveals a cascade of period
doubling which is shown to evolve to a strange attractor.
Investigation of the bifurcation criteria obtained reveals a steady state
superstructure in the bifurcation set. This superstructure identifies a similar bifurcation
pattern of coexisting solutions in the sub, ultra and ultrasubharmonic domains. Within
this structure strange attractors appear when a period doubling sequence is infinite and
when abrupt changes in the size of an attractor occur near tangent bifurcations.
Parametric analysis of system instabilities reveals the influence of the convective inertial
force which can not be neglected for large response and the bias induced by the
quadratic viscous drag is found to be a controlling mechanism even for moderate sea
states.
Thus, stability analyses of a nonlinear ocean mooring system by semi-analytical
methods reveal the existence of bifurcations identifying complex periodic and aperiodic
nonlinear phenomena. The results obtained apply to a variety of nonlinear ocean
mooring and towing system configurations. Extensions and applications of this research
are discussed. === Graduation date: 1992
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