Structural Integrity Management for a Large Pre-Stressed Concrete Floating Production Unit

Author(s):  
Bertrand Lanquetin ◽  
Pascal Collet ◽  
Jose Esteve

Offshore Floating Production Units, usually deployed under long-term plan, handle the field production so they cannot be easily removed for dry-docking and repair. In order to constantly analyze and monitor the condition of the units, a tailor-made methodology has been developed and implemented since 2004 for the Integrity Management of our Floating Units currently in operation. The paper gives a description of this methodology, and then focuses on how the methodology was deployed for the large pre-stressed concrete Floating Production Unit (FPU) located offshore Congo on N’KOSSA field. This FPU is the largest existing pre-stressed concrete Floating Production Unit, built with high performance concrete, installed offshore since 1996 in 170 m water depth. She has now accumulated 10 years of production. A significant part of the methodology is based on a full Finite Element Model (FEM) with non-linear analysis capacity for the concrete structure, incorporating a description of passive and active steel. There is often an anchored perception that a concrete unit is something not requiring attention once installed. This paper shows otherwise, underlining the complexity of modeling the highly non linear characteristics of pre-stressed high performance concrete and degradation modes.

Author(s):  
Pascal Collet ◽  
Nicolas Vaucquelin ◽  
Arnaud Bury

The paper describes the way a large pre-stressed concrete Floating Production Unit (FPU) located offshore Congo on N’KOSSA field has been inspected and assessed in order to meet both Bureau Veritas Class and Floating Units Integrity Management System (FUIMS) requirements. This FPU is the largest existing pre-stressed concrete barge. She was built with high performance concrete, installed offshore in 1996 in 170 m water depth. She has now accumulated 18 years of production. A significant part of the methodology is based on close inspection for the concrete structure, a graphic assessment of the defects and an implementation of monitoring. This assessment is done a long time after construction and we had to cope with difficulties relative to the structure size, loss of data, barge in operations off-shore. It gives a good feedback of what we should implement during the design and the construction to keep a clear view of the concrete barge integrity.


Author(s):  
Prasada Rao Rangaraju

In collaboration with FHWA, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (Mn/DOT) has successfully completed its first experimental high-performance concrete pavement (HPCP) project under the Testing and Evaluation Program (TE-30). This project is one of the 22 projects funded under the TE-30 Program. With a structural design life of 60 years, this HPCP is unique in that it incorporates significant changes to the existing Mn/DOT specifications on concrete materials. Some of the new materials-related specifications developed as a part of this project are based on performance criteria that influence long-term durability of the pavement structure. The background and considerations for selecting the new performance measures are discussed, and test results are presented that evaluate the practical feasibility of establishing and achieving the performance specifications.


1998 ◽  
Vol 1624 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-139
Author(s):  
Mary Lou Ralls ◽  
Ramon L. Carrasquillo ◽  
Ned H. Burns

High-performance concrete (HPC) bridges can be cost-effective both initially and in the long term, provided the design and construction optimize the improved performance characteristics of HPC. Using the high-strength characteristic of HPC can reduce the required number and size of beams. Using the improved durability characteristics of HPC can reduce maintenance requirements and extend the service life. Practical guidelines help design and construction engineers implement HPC in bridges.


2016 ◽  
Vol 827 ◽  
pp. 215-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Čítek ◽  
Milan Rydval ◽  
Jiří Kolísko

Research in the Ultra-High Performance Concrete applications field is very important. Current experiences shows that the structure design should be optimize due to relatively new fine-grained cement-based Hi-Tech material with excellent mechanical and durability properties. It is not sure if some of the volumetric changes like creep or shrinkage has or has not an impact on an advantage for the construction and for the structure design. The effect of the shrinkage and creep of common used concretes are well known and well described at publications but the effect of volumetric changes of the UHPC is mostly unknown because of the fact that some of experimental tests are long term and the development of UHPC is still in its basics. A lot of works are focused on a basic mechanical properties and durability tests.


2016 ◽  
Vol 249 ◽  
pp. 203-208
Author(s):  
Peter Kendický ◽  
Vladimír Benko ◽  
Tomáš Gúcky

The use of non-linear methods for design of slender concrete columns by European standards. For the verification of non-linear design methods it is important to compare their results with results of experiments. Within the applied research of the Faculty of Civil Engineering at Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava in cooperation with the company ZIPP Bratislava LTD the experimental verification of the slender reinforced concrete columns was realized. In the paper the authors present the preparation and process one of three series of slender reinforced concrete columns, which were made to verify the reliability of various design methods. Columns of planned second series were designed from high performance concrete C100/115, but the material tests showed that the strength class of concrete was C70/85. The columns, subjected to axial force and bending moment were designed to fail due to loss of stability before the resistance of the critical cross-section is reached. The expected compressive strain in concrete was 1,5 ‰.


Author(s):  
Rasoul Hejazi ◽  
Andrew Grime ◽  
Mark Randolph ◽  
Mike Efthymiou

Abstract In-service integrity management (IM) of steel lazy wave risers (SLWRs) can benefit significantly from quantitative assessment of the overall risk of system failure as it can provide an effective tool for decision making. SLWRs are prone to fatigue failure within their touchdown zone (TDZ). This failure mode needs to be evaluated rigorously in riser IM processes because fatigue is an ongoing degradation mechanism threatening the structural integrity of risers throughout their service life. However, accurately evaluating the probability of fatigue failure for riser systems within a useful time frame is challenging due to the need to run a large number of nonlinear, dynamic numerical time domain simulations. Applying the Bayesian framework for machine learning, through the use of Gaussian Processes (GP) for regression, offers an attractive solution to overcome the burden of prohibitive simulation run times. GPs are stochastic, data-driven predictive models which incorporate the underlying physics of the problem in the learning process, and facilitate rapid probabilistic assessments with limited loss in accuracy. This paper proposes an efficient framework for practical implementation of a GP to create predictive models for the estimation of fatigue responses at SLWR hotspots. Such models are able to perform stochastic response prediction within a few milliseconds, thus enabling rapid prediction of the probability of SLWR fatigue failure. A realistic North West Shelf (NWS) case study is used to demonstrate the framework, comprising a 20” SLWR connected to a representative floating facility located in 950 m water depth. A full hindcast metocean dataset with associated statistical distributions are used for the riser long-term fatigue loading conditions. Numerical simulation and sampling techniques are adopted to generate a simulation-based dataset for training the data-driven model. In addition, a recently developed dimensionality reduction technique is employed to improve efficiency and reduce complexity of the learning process. The results show that the stochastic predictive models developed by the suggested framework can predict the long-term TDZ fatigue damage of SLWRs due to vessel motions with an acceptable level of accuracy for practical purposes.


1996 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 1129-1136
Author(s):  
Axel-Pierre Bois ◽  
Mohamed Lachemi ◽  
Gérard Ballivy

The Portneuf Bridge, built in 1992, is the first air-entrained high-performance concrete bridge in North America. To understand its short and long term behaviour, an auscultation program has been set. Hence, a cylindrical concrete inclusion of the Université de Sherbrooke was installed in one of the abutments of the bridge. The aim of this study is to present the first results thus acquired. The analysis of the results allowed to calculate the coefficient of thermal expansion of the concrete and to assess deformation variations due to shrinkage and creep and the effects of rebar–concrete interaction in the upper abutment region. Moreover, the presence of thermal gradients, which creates nonisotropic deformations, has been established. Key words: high-performance concrete, deformations, thermal gradients, instrumentation, bridge, monitoring. [Journal translation]


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