The Dynamics of Slack Marine Cables

Examples of the uses of slack cables in marine and offshore applications include deepwater moorings and the guy lines of towers and platforms. A brief summary is given of some of the important aspects of the linear theory for the vibration of horizontal and inclined slack cables. Then the important differences between the two cases are pointed out through the use of analytical and computational examples. These examples use typical methods which have been developed in recent years for predicting the dynamics of slack cables with and without arrays of attached discrete masses.