Studies of iter-link cyclic wear of axially loaded mooring chains

Floating production storage and offloading platforms (FPSOs) used in the offshore oil and gas industries are moored by several mooring lines consisting of wire rope and chain. Chain wear is an issue for mooring line safety. Herein full-scale experiments are reported for assessing the wear that may be experienced by chains under operation conditions. Since such tests are very expensive, scale experiments are being assessed as possible substitutes and to allow many more parameters to be tested. The experiments show that chain wear increases with increased axial tension and with greater inter-link angular movement. Wear is much greater when the inter-link rotations occur under dry conditions compared to continually wet conditions.