The design of offshore structures
vary from one oil outfit to another. Locally, the American Petroleum Institute (API) standard has been used extensively in conjunction with the PETRONAS Technical Specifications (PTS). While the local approach is generally considered successful, there is a common trend now to optimize design further in view of escalating costs and the need to be focused on the intention of the offshore structure to support dwindling oil reservoirs. At the moment, there is a working technical group addressing this issue and producing a local design standard for offshore structures. Take for example the structural members in water which are mostly made up of tubular members to reduce drag effects. By having a circular shape, the shape factor for a tubular member is Cs=0.5 compared to Cs=1.5 for I -beams. Thus significant drag force can be reduced by using tubular members.
The design code for the jackets with tubular members will usually comply with the American Petroleum Institute, Recommended Practice for Planning, Designing and Constructing Fixed Offshore Platforms - Working Stress Design also known as API-RP-2A-WSD.
In the design for the foundation for example, consideration is made based on two variables: first, the piles which are typically long pipes driven into the soil, and second, the effects of the soil where the piles are driven. Due to the linear nature of the pile, and the nonlinear nature of the soil, the foundation analysis for the offshore structures is complicated owing to the interaction of a linear material with non-linear soil.
This is normally termed as the Pile-Soil-Interaction or PSI analysis.
In the approach of using a working Stress Design, the safety factors are mostly covered in the component parts which reside in the formulas to calculate the members, joints and the foundation safety factors, which is also known as the unity check (UC). However, due to the drive from component based to system based design, the sentiment is now geared towards a reliability based design code in the future such as the ISO (the International Organization for Standardization).
Top 10 richest Malaysians in 2014: Malaysia now boasts a total of eighteen billionaires, up from fourteen a year ago! Let's now take a look at the ten of the richest locals in 2014. As many Malaysians are well aware of, our country is going through a period of lows; our currency, the Ringgit, is weakening, we are experiencing a slowing economy and a lackluster stock market. All these come together to affect those who are earning a regular salary. But all of it is probably nothing more than an extra shrug from the guys on this list – if at all. In fact, some of those on the Forbes’ Malaysia’s Richest Tycoon list (ie the richest Malaysians, as of March 2014) have seen their fortunes increase as well, due to shrewd business decisions (amongst other things) despite economic conditions. Malaysia now boasts a total of eighteen billionaires, up from fourteen a year ago! Let’s now take a look at the ten of the richest locals in 2014. Source: Forbes’ Malaysia’s 50 Richest List Number 10: ...
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