Mooring Advisory Systems

A Mooring Advisory System (MAS) is a system that integrates a vessel's position reference and mooring monitoring information with additional display and computational capabilities. Typical data inputs and functions of the MAS are as follows:

Data:	Metocean Data	Functions:	Data Acquisition
	Vessel Motions		Processing & Statistics
	Vessel Position		Monitoring & Display
	Mooring Tensions		Alarm Handling
	Mooring Payouts		Simulation & Advice
	Winch Speeds		Logging & Archiving
	Gangway / Riser		Historic Review

Information handled by the system may include metocean and vessel motions in addition to position and mooring data. The actual functionality provided by a particular system depends upon the intended purposes which may be to serve operational and/or strategic goals such as:

Real time situation monitoring
Hazard warning and safety
Operational decision support
Historic "black-box" record
Operator training
Performance monitoring
Wear & fatigue assessment
Mooring design verification
Research data collection
Norwegian regulations require floating facilities (including mobile units) to have systems capable of collecting and recording environmental, meteorological and performance (EMP) data. To enable the real-time acquisition of required information, the MAS will be interfaced to other vessel equipment and sensors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The interfacing may be via network or data highway connection to other computer or PLC based systems or by direct digital communication links such as serial RS232/422 or parallel IEE488.

Any directly connected analogue sensors will require signal conditioning and A/D conversion.

The MAS can be implemented with several levels of capability:

	Either mooring or position monitoring only with alarm handling
	Integrated mooring and position monitoring with alarm handling
	Integrated monitoring with mooring model for cross checks and redundancy
	Integrated monitoring with mooring model and line integrity monitoring
	Full integrated monitoring with additional advisory and simulation capabilities

Some of the benefits that may be realised through an integrated Mooring Advisory System are as follows:

Up-to-date and reliable information to support operational decisions.
Safe and efficient mooring adjustments and repositioning operations.
Optimum mooring management to minimise weather impact and downtime.
On-the-job operator training through simulations and learning exercises.
Immediate detection of line failure through continuous integrity monitoring.
Collection of data for wear and fatigue assessment to reduce IMR costs.
Performance assessment and design feed-back to identify improvements.

Further Information

Further information may be obtained by contacting Martin Delaney at the Synectica London Office.

Have a look at our News section to find out about our latest MAS installations.