Stability Criteria and Analysis of a Monocolumn Concept

To be classified and approved by a classification society, all offshore structures shall be submitted and analyzed according to standard rules. The stability criteria are based on the IMO–MODU (International Maritime Organization–Mobile Offshore Drilling Units) Code which has reference to almost all types of floating units such as surface, column-stabilized and self elevating, but problems were found when dealing with monocolumn concept due to differences between this concept and those presented by the rules. The monocolumn studied is a floating production system (FPS) platform designed to handle steel catenary risers (SCR) in a depth of 1800 m in Brazilian oil fields. In this project, special concern was given to sea keeping behavior, constructability and security. This paper discusses the last item, focusing on subdivision and stability analysis. In order to overcome difficulties in finding the appropriate criteria, the work was developed using a special criteria, discussed with Det Norske Veritas (DNV) and PETROBRAS, which could be implanted in future classifications for this type of hull.Copyright © 2004 by ASME