Essentials of Offshore Structures Framed and Gravity Platforms

Essentials of Offshore Structures: Framed and Gravity Platforms examines the engineering ideas and offshore drilling platforms for exploration and production. This book offers a clear and acceptable demonstration of both the theory and application of the relevant procedures of structural, fluid, and geotechnical mechanics to offshore structures. It makes available a multitude of "solved problems" and "sample problems to solve" which give readers a strong understanding of the analysis and design of steel-framed and base-supported concrete gravity offshore structures. The book highlights sensible engineering applications for offshore structural design, research, and development; it can also be useful to those working in the design industry.

• The user will have a detailed overview of the various structures used in the offshore environment and the preliminary costing factors that will influence their choice for the site.
• Analytical principles emphasized in the book will help the user to clearly comprehend the various issues that need to be taken into account in the analysis and design of an offshore structure, using the API code.
• The book includes extensive worked-out problems and sample problems for use by the students and instructors, with a Solution Manual.
• The seabed pile/gravity foundation analyses and design are clearly outlined with their embedment characteristics and problems worked out.
• A global description of environmental forces has been given that includes those due to wave, wind, current, tides, earthquakes, ice floe/sheet action, and limit ice-load on Arctic structures.
• The book outlines the various factors that influence the material choice for offshore structures including fatigue and corrosion of the platforms in the ocean environment.

Separate chapters detail the factors that influence the pile embedment and concrete gravity foundation characteristics, material choice including fatigue and corrosion, estimation of ocean environmental forces that will be exerted on the offshore structures, and the analysis fundamentals that the reader needs to possess. The last two chapters give detailed insights into the analysis and design of framed and concrete gravity platform offshore structures using API code procedures. Overall, this book is a comprehensive presentation of the analysis and design of steel and concrete offshore structures.

Offshore Operations and Structural Development. Components of a Typical Offshore Structure. Ocean Environment – Wind, Wave, Current, Tides, Ice and Seismic Effects. Seabed Mechanics. Materials and Their Behavior in the Ocean Environment. Environmental Forces on Offshore Structures. Fundamental Considerations for Offshore Structures. Analysis of Framed Steel Offshore Structures. Gravity Concrete Structures Analysis. Compliant Structural Analysis. Semi-submersibles and Station-keeping. Submerged and Structure Analysis. Offshore Pipeline Analysis. Manmade Offshore Islands and Analysis. Higher Aspects of Offshore Structural Analysis.

D. V. Reddy, Ph.D., P.E., P. Eng., C. Eng (U.K.) is a professor of civil, environmental and geomatics engineering, and director, Center for Marine Structures and Geotechnique, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, U.S.A. He has held professorships at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India; Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL, Canada; and University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, U.S.A.; and visiting professorships at a number of universities. He has taught courses on offshore and coastal structures for over 30 years. His research interests are in the areas of marine structures, materials, and geotechnical engineering, with particular focus on concrete technology and computational/analytical mechanics. He is a Fellow of the American Concrete Institute. He has authored over 370 papers, two books, edited three conference volumes; and been recognized by a number of awards.

Dr. A.S.J. Swamidas