Finite memory quadratic Volterra model for the response prediction of a slender marine structure under a Morison load

A quadratic Volterra model with a finite nonlinear memory effect was introduced and applied to the time series prediction of a slender marine structure exposed to the Morison load. First, the unknown nonlinear single-input–single-output dynamic system was identified using the nonlinear autoregressive with exogenous input (NARX) technique based on the prepared datasets of the wave elevation and system response, which was obtained by running nonlinear time domain analysis for a certain short term sea state. The structure of NARX was designed in such a way that the linear part had infinite memory, whereas the nonlinear part had finite memory of a certain length. Second, the frequency domain Volterra kernels, both linear and quadratic, were derived analytically by applying the harmonic probing method to the identified system. To derive the frequency response functions, the sigmoidal function used in NARX to realize the nonlinear relationship between the input and output was expanded to polynomials based on the Taylor series expansion, so that the harmonics of same frequencies were easily matched between the input and output. Finally, the time series of the system response under arbitrarily given short term sea states were predicted using the quadratic Volterra series. The proposed methodology was used to predict the nonlinear dynamic response of a 2-dimentional free standing catenary riser exposed to a random ocean wave load, and the comparison between the prediction and simulation results was made on the probability distribution of the maximum excursion of riser top. The results show that the proposed methodology can successfully capture the nonlinear effects of the dynamic response of a slender marine structure induced by the quadratic term of the Morison formula.