Buoy size depends only on its submerged volume and the riser's weight in water being supported by that buoy. If either one of them plus any weights they support weigh less than the water they displace, they could surface.
The closed end force on one end of the riser is counteracted by and equal and opposite closed end force at the other end of the riser; these only create a tension stress in the riser itself.
I suppose that theoretically the FPSO could move, if everything was just right. I haven't thought too much about that though. The FPSO might deflect the riser too. Any wind or current loads the FPSO has at the time will must tend to pull the end of the riser connecting to it.
I would think you want to have enough unsupported length of riser such that it will still have bending deflection and not straighten out and try to move the FPSO. In other words, any change in arc length of the riser will not change the total horizontal displacement of the beginning and ending point of the riser (in the global coordinate system), it will just increase the curvature of the riser.
I would approach the problem from a composite materials point of view, such as reinforcement steel in concrete. We need something like an effective modulus of a composite material. If the strains are similar, which they should be in order to prevent one material from disbonding from the other, the cross-sectional area of each should be proportioned to the total cross-sectional area of both and according to their individual moduluii of elasticitities to give a stress in each such that strains are equal. Can you estimate an "effective modulus" on that basis?
If that doesn't work, and/or you can't get an allowable strain from the manufacturer, you might have to test some of the composite material. Young's modulus might be estimated by measuring the force to stretch it a certain amount and divide that by the amount it stretches. Stress * Length/E = strain, so solve for an average or effective E.
can you post a configuration of this riser buoy and FPSO arangement? I'd like to see what I'm trying to talk about here.
"If everything seems under control, you're just not moving fast enough."
- Mario Andretti- When asked about transient hydraulics