Definitions and characteristics of loading patterns on single and shared marine anchors for floating offshore wind turbines
Definitions and characteristics of loading patterns on single and shared marine anchors for floating offshore wind turbines
The growth of floating offshore wind has prompted new attention on the behaviour of anchors, including the concept of anchor sharing among multiple mooring lines. A critical design interface is between the mooring line loads and the geotechnical design. Typically ten to a hundred design loading conditions must be rationalised into the critical contributions that govern the geotechnical response of the anchor. This paper provides a framework to bridge between the mooring system analysis and the geotechnical design. Firstly, a methodology to translate a general time history of anchor loading into a characteristic ‘fingerprint’ is set out. This fingerprint has three components – (i) a ‘heatmap’ defining the normalised distribution of the cyclic loading across the three spherical dimensions of the resultant load, (ii) a vector of the relative cyclic frequency in these directions, and (iii) two scalar quantities required to unpack these normalised parameters to recover the original time series characteristics. Secondly, measures of similarity are defined, that allow two fingerprints to be quantitatively compared. This provides a new measure to compare the idealised patterns of loading used in model testing, field testing or laboratory element tests with the more complex patterns that are found in real data of anchor loading or from numerical simulations of floating systems. The framework is illustrated by demonstrating the varying similarity evident between example mooring line loads and the common loading patterns applied in geotechnical testing. In summary, this new framework allows anchor loading histories to be distilled into simple fingerprints and similarity measures, providing to tool to accelerate identification of critical design cases and allow more efficient idealisation for geotechnical modelling and design.
Anchor, Loading, Offshore engineering, Offshore renewable energy
White, D.J.
a986033d-d26d-4419-a3f3-20dc54efce93
Cerfontaine, B.
0730daf4-9d6b-4f2d-a848-a3fc54505a02
Rashidi Mehrabadi, A.
4084e931-2358-498c-8141-d85716d6d598
Gourvenec, S.
6ff91ad8-1a91-42fe-a3f4-1b5d6f5ce0b8
23 February 2026
White, D.J.
a986033d-d26d-4419-a3f3-20dc54efce93
Cerfontaine, B.
0730daf4-9d6b-4f2d-a848-a3fc54505a02
Rashidi Mehrabadi, A.
4084e931-2358-498c-8141-d85716d6d598
Gourvenec, S.
6ff91ad8-1a91-42fe-a3f4-1b5d6f5ce0b8
White, D.J., Cerfontaine, B., Rashidi Mehrabadi, A. and Gourvenec, S.
(2026)
Definitions and characteristics of loading patterns on single and shared marine anchors for floating offshore wind turbines.
Applied Ocean Research, 168, [104980].
(doi:10.1016/j.apor.2026.104980).
Abstract
The growth of floating offshore wind has prompted new attention on the behaviour of anchors, including the concept of anchor sharing among multiple mooring lines. A critical design interface is between the mooring line loads and the geotechnical design. Typically ten to a hundred design loading conditions must be rationalised into the critical contributions that govern the geotechnical response of the anchor. This paper provides a framework to bridge between the mooring system analysis and the geotechnical design. Firstly, a methodology to translate a general time history of anchor loading into a characteristic ‘fingerprint’ is set out. This fingerprint has three components – (i) a ‘heatmap’ defining the normalised distribution of the cyclic loading across the three spherical dimensions of the resultant load, (ii) a vector of the relative cyclic frequency in these directions, and (iii) two scalar quantities required to unpack these normalised parameters to recover the original time series characteristics. Secondly, measures of similarity are defined, that allow two fingerprints to be quantitatively compared. This provides a new measure to compare the idealised patterns of loading used in model testing, field testing or laboratory element tests with the more complex patterns that are found in real data of anchor loading or from numerical simulations of floating systems. The framework is illustrated by demonstrating the varying similarity evident between example mooring line loads and the common loading patterns applied in geotechnical testing. In summary, this new framework allows anchor loading histories to be distilled into simple fingerprints and similarity measures, providing to tool to accelerate identification of critical design cases and allow more efficient idealisation for geotechnical modelling and design.
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e-pub ahead of print date: 23 February 2026
Published date: 23 February 2026
Keywords:
Anchor, Loading, Offshore engineering, Offshore renewable energy
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Local EPrints ID: 510489
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/510489
ISSN: 0141-1187
PURE UUID: a092dc7c-fe4b-49a8-be56-26cb5409e79a
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Date deposited: 13 Apr 2026 09:45
Last modified: 14 Apr 2026 02:03
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Author:
A. Rashidi Mehrabadi
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