Recoil Control of Deepwater-Drilling Riser with Optimal Guaranteed Cost H∞ Control

Abstract

In deepwater-drilling engineering, it is necessary to disconnect the bottom equipment of the lower marine-riser package from the blowout preventer when encountering multi-hazard environmental factors. In order to reduce the impact of recoil on the drilling platform after the sudden disconnection of the riser, in this paper, an optimal guaranteed cost H∞ recoil control problem is considered for the drilling riser. First, a three-element mass-damper-spring deepwater-drilling riser model subject to fluid discharge and heave motion of offshore platform is given. Then, an optimal guaranteed cost H∞ controller (OGCHC) is designed to suppress the recoil response of the drilling riser, and the sufficient conditions for the asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system are derived. Third, it is found through simulation results that the designed OGCHC can reduce the recoil response effectively. In order to further analyze the advantages of the OGCHC, the performance indices of the riser without active-recoil control and with optimal control (OC) and OGCHC are compared. It is shown that the average response amplitudes of three mass blocks of the riser are almost the same, while the control cost by the OGCHC is less than that by the OC. Further, under the designed recoil control, no riser compression occurs, thereby ensuring the safety of the riser system.