Compliant offshore structure

VIMAL KUMAR
2 9 TH B A T C H
DEPT OF SHIP TECH CUSAT.
 INTRODUCTION

y Offshore structures can be designed

g for installation
in protected waters, such as lakes, rivers, and bays or
in the open sea, many kilometers from shorelines.

Offshore structures that can be placed in water

d th off up tto 2 kil
depths kilometers
t . Th
These structures
t t may
be made of steel, reinforced concrete or a
combination of both.
both
 Major use Offshore structures

y Oil and g
gas exploration
p
y Navigation aid towers
y Bridges
g and causeways
y
y Ship loading and unloading facilities
y Drilling
g of oil well.
 Consideration for design and analysis

y Environmental ((initial transportation,

p , and in-place
p
100-year storm conditions)
y Soil characteristics
y Intensity level of consequences of failure
y Purpose (drilling, production etc)
y Life of structure.
 TYPES OF OFFSHORE OIL/GAS
EXPLORATION STRUCTURES

y Converted Jackup
p barges
g
The Converted jackup barges are the rarest, and may
be used in remote areas with relatively shallow water
depths.
Fixed tower structures
These structures vary in size and height, and can be
used in water depths up to about 300 meters,
although most commonly in water depths less than
150 meters.
y Within this category
g y there are 4
4-leg,
g, 6-leg,
g, and 8-leg
g
towers and also minimal structures whose decks are
supported by a single unbraced or pile-braced
caisson.
i
y Stationary floating SPARs
y The
Th SPAR platforms
l tf are usedd iin very d
deep water
t
exploration, The SPAR is a vertical floating cylinder
attached by means of cables
attached, cables, to anchors placed on
the seafloor more than a kilometer away.
y Compliant
p structure
y are used in water depths greater than 300 meters or
even more than that.
y The water depth at the intended location dictates
platform height.
y They consist of a floating deck structure anchored to
pile heads on the sea floor by means of long pipes
which are always kept in tension,
tension and thus can be
flexible without risk of a column buckling collapse
failure
 Compliant structure

y A compliant
p offshore structure for use in
hydrocarbon drilling and producing operations,
comprising of
y foundation template having skirt pile sleeves open at
each end and a plurality of sockets closed at the
bottom,
bottom
y tower’s jjacket is composed
p of four leg
g tubular that
can range from 3 to 7 ft in diameter and are welded
together with pipe braces to form a space-frame-like
structure.
t t
space-frame-like structure of compliant offshore structure
y The lower jjacket is secured to the seafloor by
y weight
g
and with 2- to 6-ft piles that penetrate hundreds of
feet beneath the mud line.
y Both the lower and upper jacket dimensions can
range up to 300 feet on a side.
l
lower jjacket
k iis secured
d to the
h seafloor
fl
y Deck adapted
p to be attached to the top
p tower,,
y the drilling,
y production,
p ,
y and crew quarter
y The surface facilities are smaller by
y design
g on
compliant towers than on fixed platforms because of
the decreased jacket dimensions that support them.
 Drilling
ll ,production
d and
d crew accommodation
d
spaces
y A series of buoyant
y tanks ((up
p to 12)) located in the
upper part of the jacket places the members in
tension, reducing the foundation loads of the
structure.
t t
y The tanks can range up to 20 ft in diameter and up to
120 ft in length.
length
y The amount of buoyancy is computer controlled,
keeping the appropriate tension in the structure
members during wind and wave movements.
y compliant
p towers in g
general,, mooring
g is onlyy used in
the guyed-tower design.
y several mooring lines (up to 20 lines measuring 5 ½-
inch dia.) are attached to the jacket close to the
waterline and are spread out evenly around it (up to
4 000 ft of line).
4,000 line)
y Clump weights (120 ft x 8 ft, up to 200 tons) may be
attached to each mooring line and move as the tower
moves with the wind and wave forces.
y To control the tower motions better,, the lines are
kept in tension during the swaying motions.
y The portion of the lines past the clump weights are
anchored into the seafloor with piles (as many as 20,
each 72-inch dia., 115-ft long, penetrating 130 ft, and
weighing up to 60 tons).
tons)
mooring lines
 A compliant
p p
piled tower design,
g , it is 609.9
9 9 meters ((2,001
, feet)) high,
g ,
arguably the tallest free-standing structure in the world, 75 meters of the
platform are above water. The multi-deck topsides are 64 meters by 43
meters by 18.3 meters high
Compliant offshore structure
 Important components of compliant structure

y Vertically
y extending
g tower having
g a bottom at sea
floor.
y Piles extending upward from ocean floor
y Coupling housing secured to the piles.
y Elastomeric shear pad.
 It s an elevation view of a compliant piled
tower supported by resilient piles,
12 –resilient piles
30-pile attachment location on land during
f b i ti
fabrication
18-tower base from which centre of rotation
passes.
4
14-tower frame
16-tower legs
Cut away view of the upper section of
resilient assembly
12 –resilient piles
36-elastomeric structure
38-housing rigidly secured to leg.
28-resillient coupling

34-cylindrical housing
Sectional view of at section3-3
in previous drawing.
16-tower leg
38-shear
h plate
l

28-Resillient coupling
26-pile
26 pile element
36-elastomeric structure
It shows sheer deformation of
elastomeric structure of
platform leg while tower sway
26 –pile element
16-tower
6 l
leg
 Elastomeric pads
360-stack of elastomeric disks.
Need of compliant offshore structure
y Oil industry
y moves into deeper
p water in the search
for additional supplies of oil and gas.
y The size of conventional fixed leg platforms is
approaching the economic limit due to the very large
amount of steel required and limitations imposed by
fabrication and installation methods.
methods
y Several concepts
p have been p
proposed
p for enhancing
g
the water depth capability of platforms ,which are as
follow.
y Tension Leg Platforms (TLP),
y guyed and articulated tower platforms.
y Flex tube compliant offshore structure
y These are types of compliant offshore
structure
 Types of compliant structures

yg
guyed
y p platforms,,
y tension leg platforms
y articulated towers
y Flex tube compliant offshore structure
 Flex tube compliant offshore structure

y A compliant
p offshore structure with flex tubes that
are not driven into the sea bottom. A foundation
template has bottles with skirt pile sleeves and a
closed
l db bottom
tt socket.
k t A tower
t and
d ttower extension
t i
support the deck above the water line. The tower legs
each enclose a flex tube
leg tension platforms
leg tension platforms
 Comparison and similarity

y Compliant
p towers are similar to fixed p
platforms in
that they have a steel tubular jacket that is used to
support the surface facilities.
y compliant towers yield to the water and wind
movements in a manner similar to floating
structures.
structures
y Like fixed platforms, they are secured to the seafloor
with piles
y The jjacket of a compliant
p tower has smaller
dimensions than those of a fixed platform and may
consist of two or more sections.
y It can also have buoyant sections in the upper jacket
with mooring lines from jacket to seafloor (guyed-
tower designs) or a combination of the two.
two
 Major feature of compliant structure

y structures whose mooring

g system
y is constituted byy
vertical tethers.
y This characteristic makes the structure very rigid in
the vertical direction and very flexible in the
horizontal plane. Both these features result
particularly attractive.
attractive
y The vertical rigidity
g y helps
p to tie in wells for
production, while, the horizontal compliance makes
the platform insensitive to the primary effect of
waves.
y Second-order, slowly varying drift forces at low
frequency caused by waves may result in the low
frequency,
frequency resonant oscillation of structure.
y Economically
y attractive for deep
p water conditions
because of their reduced structural weight compared
to conventional platforms.
y The foundations of these kinds of structures do not
resist lateral environmental loads forces; instead,
restoring moments are provided by a large buoyancy
force, a set of guy lines or a combination of both
y These structures have a fundamental frequency
q y well
below the ocean wave’s lower frequency-bound.
y use of compliant towers in water depths ranging up
to 3,000 ft. This range is generally considered to be
beyond the economic limit for fixed jacket-type
platforms
 INSTALLATION

y Tower legs
g are fabricated in yyards in small module.
With normal shipyard facility ,it can be fabricated
easily. Tower legs, accommodation module, are
f b i t d and
fabricated d ttransported
t d tto th
the site
it with
ith th
the b
barge.
y Length of tower is up to 500m or even more, hence
fabricated in considerable size.
size
Fabricated compliant offshore structure
Fabricated module for production
Fabricated complaint offshore transported to site
y The water depth
p at the intended location dictates
platform height.
y Once the lower jacket is secured to the seafloor, it
acts as a base (compliant tower) for the upper jacket
and surface facilities.
y Large
L barge-mounted
b t d cranes position
iti and d secure th
the
jacket and install the surface facility modules.
Installation of accommodation module to compliant structure
 References

US Patent 5431512
543 5
US Patent 4721417
www.marinetalk.com
Dynamic Response of Compliant Offshore Structures
(R. Adrezin)
Thank you