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www.sea-technology.com July 2014 / st 39 Methodology and Simulations OBSEA's buoy is currently moored to the seafoor obser- vatory by an umbilical. Instead of using an umbilical in our simulation, we modeled the buoy to simulate a large power cable connecting the buoy to a technology on the seafoor. The purpose of this simulation was to predict the behavior of such a cable and a moored platform at sea using real-world conditions. O bservation platforms at sea need power cables for energy. Such platforms and cables are exposed con- stantly to the dynamic behavior of sea waves, wind and current. It is useful to carry out numerical simulations of how a large underwater power cable connecting an ocean sur- face platform to a seafoor technology would behave with regard to marine conditions prior to design and installa- tion at sea. This would help a manufacturer identify critical parameters that could af- fect the cable in the feld, for instance, in projects that would require mooring wind turbines in the ocean. We conducted a simulation experiment using a small, existing platform, OBSEA, located 4 kilometers offshore the Vilanova i la Geltrú coast in a fshing protected area of the Catalan coast of Spain. OBSEA is a cabled seafoor observatory connected to a station on the coast by a power-and- communication cable. The station located onshore provides the power supply and a fber-optic communication link, while carrying out alarm management tasks and storing data in real time. The marine observatory is located at 20 meters depth and gathers data on waves, current and pressure, among other environmental factors. A buoy to gather meteorological data is moored to the seafoor observatory by three chains of 30 meters length each. Simulation of Cable Dynamics For Moored Ocean Platforms Modeling Aids Design of Large, Underwater Power Cable By Joana Prat • Marisa Zaragozá • Joaquín del Río Fernández (Top) OBSEA's buoy at the Vilanova coast. (Middle) OrcaF- lex 3D view of a dynamic simulation of the buoy model for OBSEA with a simulated power cable. (Bottom) Schematic view in a northeast plan of the buoy model showing chain location and wind direction, waves and current at 9 p.m. UTC on December 16, 2011.