WASP - West Africa Swell Project - Final report and Appendices

• Main Authors: Olagnon, Michel, Prevosto, Marc, Van Iseghem, Sylvie, Ewans, Kevin, Forristall, George Z.
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: 2004
• Subjects: Southern Ocean
• Online Access: https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00114/22537/20216.pdf; https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00114/22537/20222.pdf; https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00114/22537/

The OGP Workshop on the Metocean and Engineering Aspects of Floating Systems which was held at St. Albans in April 2001 identified better discrimination of the low frequency end of the wave spectrum as one of the most pressing problems for the design and analysis of floating systems. The responses of many floating systems have proven to be very sensitive not only to the amplitude and frequency of the swell, but also to the details of the shape of the swell peak in the spectrum. There has been relatively little serious study of the low frequency end of the wave spectrum compared to the effort that has gone into the study of the high frequency tail of the spectrum. Much of the present interest in swell comes from the active deep water developments taking place off West Africa. The West African environment is generally mild, but swell from storms in the Southern Ocean is persistent and can reach fairly high amplitudes with very low periods. Enough data is now available so that a serious study of the characteristics of swell off West Africa can be made. In response to this need and opportunity, Shell Global Solutions, in association with Ifremer and Oceanweather, formed a Joint Industry Project to analyze and compare the available data on swell off West Africa. This report describes the results of that West Africa Swell Project (WASP).