## 1 Introduction  
It is known that seaports are nodes that are integrated into logistical and transportation networks [1]. However, in the deep sea, where there are no seaports, offshore floating platforms play the same role as mobile seaports. With offshore floating platforms developing towards large-scale and multi-modularization, the connector structure plays a vital role in the design of the VLFS. In general, connectors can be sorted into three types: rigid joint, hinged joint and flexible joint [2]. Through model tests, it has been found that there are great design loads on the rigid joint connectors in extreme sea conditions. In addition, the flexible joint connector structure is relatively more complicated. Therefore, hinged joint connectors are more widely used in order to avoid the shortcomings of the other connectors. The hinged joint structure, such as the Articulated Concrete Block Matfress (ACB Matt), be applied as a revetent on the breakwater body or for shoreline protection [3]. At present, there are two methods that are used to calculate the connector loads according to whether the deformation of the floating structure is considered: the RMFC (Rigidity module flexible connector) model and the FMFC model. [PERSON] [4] first propose the RMFC method for calculating the response of very large floating structures based on the three-dimensional hydroelasticity theory, where the stiffness of the connector is much smaller than that of the floating body and the elastic deformation of the connector structure is almost non-elastic in waves, so the elastic deformation comes from the connector. The RMFC method is widely used because it consumes less time and involves simple modeling. [PERSON] [5] simplified the flexible connector into a linear spring with three-directional stiffness for hinged connectors and converted the force of the connection point to the centroid of the module structure for solution purposes when studying MOBs (Mobile Offshore Bases). Then, based on [PERSON] study, [PERSON] [6; 7] limited the relative translation of the connector and released the relative rotation in order to study the motion and connector load of MOBs under different wave environments and with different connector stiffness, which was verified by a model test conducted at a 1:100 scale. [PERSON] [8] took the seabed as the second fixed body in the diffraction theory and used the RMFC method to study the connector loads of VLFSs under varying water depths. [PERSON] [9] and [PERSON] [10] further established the hydroelastic analysis method based on the Boussinesq equation and the three-dimensional potential flow theory, which considers the influence of topography and non-uniform waves. Then, the connector loads between modules of VLFSs were studied, and it was found that ignoring the influence of the terrain would lead to underestimations of the connector load. However, with the development of the hydroelasticity theory [11; 12; 13; 14; 15] and the improvement of computer calculation abilities, the hydroelasticity method has become more widely used. [PERSON] [16] summarized the hydroelasticity analysis method of VLFSs and pointed out that the application of the hydroelasticity analysis method in VLFSs is the future direction of development. [PERSON] [17] considered that the elastic deformation of VLFSs should not be ignored in practice, so both the floating body and the connector structure should be considered elastic bodies. Therefore, the FMFC method is proposed, considering the elastic deformation of the platform and the connector at the same time based on the hydroelastic analysis method, which considers the floating bodies and the connector structure as a whole. [PERSON] [18] analyzed the general characteristics of the hydroelastic response of a dual-module platform with a hinged connector structure. As a special case, the response of the dual-module interconnection structure with very high connector stiffness was found to be in good agreement with the experimental results of equivalent continuous structures.