Design for Flexible Connector of Multi-Floating Structure

Abstract For the connector between the modules of a regular hexagonal multi-floating structure, it designed a flexible connector based on hinge joints and spin joints, which allowed part of rolling, pitching and torsion between adjacent modules to release bending moment and strain. A 221m multi-floating structure hydrodynamic calculation model was modeled in this paper. Firstly, the connector loads under the regular waves were calculated by ANSYS Aqwa. Secondly, structural model of a flexible connector was built by SolidWorks basing on the finite element theory. It analyzed structural strength of the flexible connectors under different load conditions of a series of wave direction angles by ANSYS Static Structral. Lastly, the results show that the design of the multi-floating structure connectors met the design requirements in different working conditions.