Design of Offshore Drilling Structures

Abstract This paper is a condensation of part of the vast amount of published engineering information which applies to the design of offshore drilling and production structures. Owing to the rapid development within this field, the correlation between the theoretical and actual conditions has not been established firmly; however, additional experimental and operating information which will become available in the next few years should aid this problem considerably. The wind and wave forces which act on offshore structures are described in detail together with the soil reactions which hold the structures in place. The internal effects such as deflections, stresses, and natural frequencies also are discussed for a number of special cases. In addition, methods for calculating the floating stability of mobile units are presented. A general classification of offshore structures is given to illustrate the relative advantages of certain general types of structures.