Ocean EIWK. Vol. 23, No. 6, pp.

545-550, 1995 Copyright 0 19% Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights raered M)29-80181% $15.00 + 0.00

0029-8081(95)00060-7

TECHNICAL NOTE
AN ALTERNATIVE STRUCTURAL SYSTEM FOR AN OFFSHORE AIRPORT
H. Wibisono
School of Civil and Structural Engineering Nanyang Technological University Nanyang Avenue, Singapore, 2263 (Received 4 April 1995; Accepted I June 1995) Abstract-An alternative floating system for an offshore airport and other reclamation works is presented. It consists of precast boxes filled with FRP hollow spheres which sit on pile system. A top slab system consisting of precast and cast in situ concrete slabs will make the whole system monolithic. The light weight but strong spheres will enable the system to make use the uplift force from water. The precast boxes and slab system will transfer the difference between the gravity and uplift forces, as well as any lateral forces to the pile system. Finally, a proposed method of any lateral forces to the pile system. construction is also presented.

1. INTRODUCTION

An offshore airport might offer a better alternative compared to the inland one, as it is located far from residential or commercial areas. Therefore it leads to much less problem in noise disturbance and at the same time it increases air safety. At present, an offshore airport is built on a reclaimed land, which is constructed by placing soil as filling material on the sea bed. A number of offshore airports are currently in progress or planned in the near future. In September 1994, the world first offshore airport, The Kansai International Airport started its operation. It is built on a 5 11 ha man made island at the cost of more than Y 1,430 billion. Hongkong is constructing new offshore airports in Lantau Island costing US$21 billion. South Korea is planning to build a new offshore airport at the cost of 10 trillion Won which includes a massive land reclamation. In Singapore, Changi Airport Extension, built on a reclaimed land is on the way. Placing filling material on sea bed means applying additional load on it. This may lead to a serious problem if sea bed and/or soil layer below it consists of weak soft soil incapable to sustain this additional load. Other problem may arise if the expected (long time) settlement is greater than the tolerable limit. Filling material, if it is not available at nearby location, must be imported and transported which may lead to additional cost. In addition, reclamation works may cause environmental hazard by killing coral and other marine life in surrounding sea during its construction. The current method to overcome the first two problems is by stabilizing weak soft soil of sea bed. This is done by driving well compacted sand piles of large diameter in certain spacing. The method is expensive, time consuming and may not guarantee future long
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time settlement of the soil below the sand piles. The recently opened Kansai International Airport which employed the above method is predicted to have excessive settlement (Wako and Kitamura, 1993). Its estimated total settlement, 50 years after the airport opening, is 11 (eleven) meters. To compensate this excessive settlement, the required depth of the fill is 33 m for the average depth of sea bed of 18 m. This paper presents an alternative structural system for offshore airport to solve the above problems. It is basically a floating structure which makes use of the uplift force of the water to reduce the downward gravity force. Whilst a number of floating structures have been built and operated successfully, its application to a big scale floating system like an offshore airport is still futuristic (Chow. 1993).
2. PROPOSED ALTERNATIVE STRUCTURAL AlRPORT SYSTEM FOR AN OFFSHORE

To make use the upward uplift force, the body of the offshore airport consists of boxes, as shown in Fig. 1. It is made of water tight concrete or composite laminate. Its optimum size and thickness are designed to maximize the uplift force and also by considering its fabrication, transportation and erection. Inside this box, hollow spheres are placed and their function is to transfer loads to the top slab system which in turn transfers them to the pile system. The most suitable material for these spheres is FRP (Fiber Reinforced Plastic) laminate due to its light weight. Spherical shape shell is chosen as it is very strong and it exhibits little deformation under compression. In addition, the fiber of each lamina can be arranged to have directions of principal tension to further increase its strength. The diameter of the sphere will determine the required thickness of both precast and cast in place concrete slab placed on top of them. The whole system will sit on cast in place pile caps. To resist any lateral loads, a number of pair of batter piles in two directions are installed at some locations. Those lateral loads may come during construction period, as well as during the airport operation (current, waves and earthquake). The cast in place concrete slab will make the whole system monolithic to resist those loads.

Cast in Situ
Ilnnrretn Slab

Pile Cap Water Level ner

FRP Hollow Spheres

Fig.

I, Proposed structural

system

for an offshore

airport

Technical Note

541

The first advantage of the proposed structural system is no fill material (soil) is required. However, its most important feature is much less imposed load on sea bed. Hence, no stabilizing of sea bed is required even if it consists of soft soil. Excessive long time settlement will not happen due to the same reason. The construction time might be shorter as most of its components are precast. On the other hand, reclamation works may require time until the soil fill reaches most of its total settlement (it may never do as in the case of Kansai International Airport). The precast components will also reduce environmental hazard during construction. However the proposed system requires much more precision in construction and fabrication works and it does not work at places with shallow sea bed.
3.

PROPOSED CONSTRUCTION METHOD

The proposed location of an offshore airport is divided into sections, each section will house one precast box as shown in Fig. 2. The piles are driven to the required depth at each four comers and at some places batter piles in one or two perpendicular directions are installed to resist horizontal loads. The cast in place concrete pile caps are then constructed on top of those piles. They are equipped with temporary fenders which will protect them during the construction, i.e. against the impact of precast boxes. At the same time, the precast boxes, FIW spheres and precast slab can be fabricated. The spheres are placed inside the precast box before launching it to the sea and then towed to the site. To help placing each precast box in its place, a winch-sling system can be placed at points with batter piles in two directions (Fig. 3). The batter piles will resist the horizontal pulling force during maneuvering those precast boxes. A temporary (detachable) horizontal steel bracing is installed connecting the top of the pile caps of the adjacent section. If it is required, another detachable bracing on vertical plane can also be installed. This bracing system will protect those piles against horizontal impact force from the precast box (which

??

Vertical Pile

-Batter

Pile

Pile cap

Fig. 2. Step 1 of the construction method.

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Container

Towing

Arrangement

(not to Scale)

Fig. 3. Step 2 of the construction

method.

will be kept to the minimum value) by transferring them to the batter piles. Once a precast box is in place, it can be lowered by filling it with water until it sits on four pile caps. Then the precast slab can be placed, followed by cast in situ concrete slab of that section. The temporary bracing at the adjacent section is taken away, and the precast boxes of that section can be placed in the same way (Fig. 4). Any impact force to the already completed section will be transmitted by the rigid slab system to the batter piles. Finally, after both concrete slabs are placed in this section, the same procedure is repeated to fill the remaining sections (Fig. 5). During its construction period, the water level in each precast box is monitored to minimize the transmitted load to the pile caps. It can be done by pumping water in and out of it through an opening made for that purpose. Note that the FRP spheres have holes at the bottom and top parts (Fig. 1). Those holes will prevent any uplift force from the spheres when the precast box is filled with water. The same water level can also be monitored in the same way during airport operation. Other option is to keep those precast boxes empty during airport operation, but the system must be designed under extreme conditions, i.e. at the lowest and highest tides.

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Fig. 4. Step 3 of the construction method.

Fig. 5. Step 4 of the construction method.

CONCLUSION Although a further and a lot more study is required, the proposed Alternative Structural System for an Offshore Airport will most likely offer a solution in the case of soft and compressible soil condition of sea bed. These advantages will make the system more appealing to be implemented, even after considering its disadvantages. The system can be applied to general reclamation works, provided that sufficient uplift force can be pro4.

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duced to resist downward gravity load. In smaller scale, it can be applied to causeway and wharf structures.
REFERENCES Wako, T. and Kitamura, S. 1993. Man-Made Island Airport, Japan.. Structural Engineering International 3, 158-160. Chow, P. Y 1993. Two Futuristic Concrete Floating Structures. Structural Engineering International 3, 161- 164.