Offshore Engineering

The best available reference book covering literally all of the risers and pipeline design. The content of this latest release of the title is duly updated with the recent technical advances in this field, reflecting the huge professional experience of the author and addressing the truly critical issues of environment protection touching the relevant economical issues.

The pipelines commonly utilized for the transfer of hydrocarbons are deservedly considered the safest and also the most reliable way of exploitation of the valuable resources that are below the surfaces of the oceans. The design of the risers and pipelines is commonly looked at as quite a new technique that continues to develop; and the main final purpose of the subject developments is reduction of the associated costs plus the minimization of the environmental impact.

The author made a very good attempt trying to assimilate the basics of the various aspects of the applied mechanics of the offshore pipeline systems. His efforts have finally resulted in this remarkably useful publication representing the proven contemporary practices and all required technical knowledge to be of practical assistance to the persons planning to form a part of the industry.

The intention of the author of this volume was to provide a good and extensive coverage of the essential offshore mechanics concepts with due attention paid to the newly introduced applications of the theory including, but not limited, to the different offshore installations, wind farms, bridges, and many others.

All critical areas of the design and analysis of the commonly used systems and structures have been addressed, providing the really fundamental information for the engineers engaged in the offshore industry. Note that both traditional and new methods have been covered, and different numerical techniques have been dealt with, such as the FEM and CFD. There are many examples and exercises included to track your progress.

The volume can be recommended to the offshore engineering students at higher levels, as well as the professional offshore engineers. All possible offshore environmental conditions have been examined, together with the foundation and mooring analysis, aerodynamic and hydrodynamic analysis, etc. in shore, the number of topics covered by the author makes this title definitely the best choice for the offshore engineering fellows who will benefit from its content.

This is a very compact but truly brilliant textbook and a genuine treasure for those making their first steps in the offshore engineering industry. Prepared and released by the specialists of one of the world leaders in the field of offshore construction, the booklet will provide the newcomers with the concise yet absolutely useful information covering all important aspects of the jack up construction and giving them literally everything they would need to know before they start digging deeper.

As the title implies, the content is focusing on the self-elevating, or jack up mobile offshore drilling units. The introductory chapter gives the very essentials and is followed by the chapter on the basic components of any jack up unit together with the relevant functions. After that, the readers will proceed to the configuration of the unit, including the guides, parts of the rig elevating system, legs, footings and others.

The operation modes have been covered in a separate chapter with the focus made on the transit and preloading, working in elevated condition, full air gap operations etc. The remaining chapters of the publication are dealing with the classification requirements applicable to this type of rig, design considerations, and unit sensitivities.

When drilling through H2S environments, sulfide stress cracking SSC – a form of hydrogen embrittlement – is a frequent cause of drill stem failure. Both stress and the absorption of hydrogen in the presence of sulfide are involved in this type of failure.

Atomic hydrogen, the smallest of atoms, is a product of most corrosion reactions. It can be absorbed by and diffused through steel and other metals. Normally, the hydrogen atoms quickly combine to form molecular hydrogen, which is too large to be absorbed by the metal and bubbles off as gas. In the presence of sulfide, however, the hydrogen remains in the atomic form for a considerably longer time and therefore has a greater probability of being absorbed by the pipe. After being absorbed, the hydrogen tends to accumulate in the area of maximum stress and, when a critical concentration is reached, a small crack forms. The hydrogen accumulates at the top of the crack and the crack grows. The process continues until the remaining metal cannot sustain the applied load and a sudden brittle fracture occurs.

The degree of this effect on a piece of steel is determined by the concentration of hydrogen, the strength of the steel, applied stress on the steel, and the time of exposure:

Strength of the steel – generally, the higher the strength of the steel, the greater is its susceptibility to SSC. The lowest strength drill pipe capable of withstanding the required drilling conditions should be used.

Total tensile load on the steel – the higher the total tensile load on the pipe, the greater is the possibility of failure by SSC. Each grade of steel has a critical, or threshold, stress below which SSC will not occur; however, the higher the grade, the lower the threshold stress.

Amount of atomic hydrogen and H2S – the higher the amount of atomic hydrogen and H2S present, the shorter the time before failure.

Time – it is required for atomic hydrogen to be absorbed and diffused in the steel to the critical concentration required for a crack to begin and failure to occur. By controlling the factors in the previous three listings, the time before which failure occurs may be sufficiently lengthened to permit the use of marginally susceptible steels for a short duration.

Temperature – the severity of SSC is greatest in normal atmospheric temperatures; it decreases as temperature increases. Operating at temperatures in excess of 135 F allows marginally susceptible materials to be used in potentially embrittling environments. The greater the hardness of the material, the higher the required safe operating temperature. Drillers must be careful, however, because SSC failure may occur when the material returns to normal temperature after it is removed from the hole.

In order to minimize the risk of SSC in water-based drilling fluids, drillers should control the drilling fluid pH. When practical, given other functions of the drilling fluid, the driller should maintain a pH of 10 or higher. In drill strings containing aluminum drill pipe, the pH should not exceed 10.5 because aluminum pipe tends to corrode more than steel at high pH level. They should also limit gas-cutting and formation fluid invasion of the wellbore by maintaining proper drilling fluid weight. Hydrogen sulfide invades the wellbore from the formation being drilled.

The drillers should also chemically treat the drilling fluid for H2S inflows from formations, preferably prior to encountering the sulfide, and use the lowest-strength drill pipe capable of withstanding the required drilling conditions, use ultimate care in tripping out the hole after exposure to an H2S environment and avoid sudden shocks and high load.

It is also recommended to remove the absorbed hydrogen from the pipe after exposure to an H2S environment by aging the pipe in open air for several days to several weeks, depending on the exposure conditions, or bake it at 400-600 F for several hours. Note that the plastic-coated drill pipe should not be heated above 400 F.

Finally, the drillers should limit drill stem testing in H2S environments to as brief a period as possible, using operating procedures such as using H2S inhibitors that will minimize exposures to SSC conditions.

Corrosion and SSC can be minimized by the use of oil-based drilling muds. Corrosion does not occur if metal is completely enveloped by an oil environment that is electrically nonconductive. Therefore, under drilling conditions that cause serious problems of corrosion damage, erosion-corrosion, or corrosion fatigue, drill stem life can be greatly extended by using an oil mud.

In this latest third, significantly updated, edition of his book, Stefan Orszulik made another attempt to look at each stage in the lifecycle of petroleum products (from oil exploration stage to end use), trying to thoroughly examine the environmental pressures experienced by the oil exploration industry together with its response to such pressures. He explores the relevant important environmental concerns and computer modeling techniques in a very understandable manner so the book may be used even by the non-experts.

The publication has been primarily intended for the workers of the oil exploration and production industry and provides essential reference for various research as well as governmental entities; the content of the book will be useful to anyone interested in environmental technological issues since the issues addressed in the pages of this volume are equally interesting and important for all parties including the offshore workers, regulatory bodies, port state officers, scientists, researchers and many others who should be well aware of the subject of the book in order to perform their activities in the most effective and environmentally friendly way.

This book was prepared and released specifically for the offshore industry professionals and students in the field of marine, ocean and coastal engineering, as well as in the field renewable energy and other relevant areas. The author tried to introduce the base for the design of the offshore structures; he addresses the wind and wave energy converters, platforms, wind turbines as well.

The publication created a link between the established and effective theoretical methods of the offshore structure design and calculation, and available recognized standards. The material has been presented in a very simple and easy to understand manner. Some of the most important keywords in the book are offshore structures, structural dynamics and wave energy converters, combined wind and wave energy, energy structures, stochastic methods, wind turbines including floating ones, renewable energy etc.

Definitely recommended for the people engaged in the design and construction of the various offshore structures, making associated calculations and conducting researches in this field since they will find lots of interesting and valuable information in the pages of this volume.

The present publication was published to encompass all newly introduced novel CFD techniques for the computation of the various offshore wind/tidal applications. The CFD techniques, standing for the computational fluid dynamics, are commonly regarded as one of the basic design instruments used for the exploration of the various engineering challenges that are presented by the turbines for the generation of the energy from winds and tides.

The problem is that the experimental tests in the offshore environment are very difficult to arrange and costly; that is why the industry people have had to concentrate on the CFD as the option to be utilized when designing the appropriate elements of the turbines, to get clear understanding of the physical phenomena involves, be able to predict the production of the electric power etc.

Note that the amount of books dedicated to the offshore turbines for power generation is still very limited so we would you to use this opportunity; we are pretty sure that no one will be disappointed with the content of this volume.

A new release of maybe the best principle primer of the offshore industry. The present publication has not been originally intended to serve as a definitive manual, it would rather be useful as the overall reference source providing the general technical introduction to the offshore engineering which is quite a complex object. The author's aim was to provide readers with a full coverage of the important aspects of the offshore industry presented in easily understandable terms; his efforts have made this title popular and appreciated by both newcomers to the offshore industry and the experiences practicing engineers.

The content of the publication starts with the general information about the offshore structures and vessels. According to the numerous feedbacks, this title shall be treated as a very valuable and timely addition to any specialist's library. The author has provided superb and lucidly clear technical explanations of the key aspects of the disciplines involved and made the book rick of essential information easily accessible to the readers regardless of their background and experience in the field.

The offshore engineers of today are required to perform a huge number of different tasks; this book shall definitely be on his shelf for ready and quick reference. It will be particularly valuable to the new recruits to the offshore industry and equally appreciated by the experienced specialists willing to refresh their technical knowledge...