• Bulletin of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.39-46
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• 2017

Jack-up drilling rigs are widely used in offshore oil and gas exploration industry. It is originally designed for use in the shallow waters less than 60m of water depth; there is growing demand for their use in deeper water depth over 150m and harsher environmental conditions. In this study, global in-place analysis of jack-up rig leg for North-sea oil well is performed through numerical analysis. Firstly, environmental conditions and seabed characteristics at the North-sea are collected and investigated measurements from survey report. Based on these data, design specifications are established and the overall basic design is performed. Dynamic characteristics of the jack-up rig for North-sea are considered in the global in-place analysis both leg and hull and the basic stability against overturning moment is also analyzed. The structural integrity of the jack-up rig leg/hull is verified through the code checks and the adequate safety margin is observed. The uncertainty in jack-up behaviour is greatly influenced by the uncertainties in the soil characteristics that determine the resistance of the foundation to the forces imposed by the jack-up structure. Among the risks above mentioned, the punch-through during pre-loading is the most frequently encountered foundation problem for jack-up rigs. The objective of this paper is to clarify the detailed structure and installation engineering matters for prove the structural safety of jack-up rigs during operation. With this intention the following items are addressed; - Characteristics of structural behavior considering soil effect against environmental loads - Modes of failure and related pre-loading procedure and parameters - Typical results of structural engineering and verification by actual measurement.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.601-609
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• 2022

Jack-up drilling rigs are mobile offshore platforms widely used in the offshore oil and gas exploration industry. These are independent, three-legged, self-elevating units with a cantilevered drilling facility for drilling and production. A typical jack-up rig includes a triangular hull, a tower derrick, a cantilever, a jackcase, living quarters and legs which comprise three-chord, open-truss, X-braced structure with a spudcan. Generally, jack-up rigs can only operate in water depths ranging from 130m to 170m. Recently, there has been an increasing demand for jack-up rigs for operating at deeper water levels and harsher environmental conditions such as waves, currents and wind loads. All static and dynamic loads are supported through legs in the jack-up mode. The most important issue by society is to secure the safety of the leg structure against collision that causes large instantaneous impact energy. In this study, nonlinear FE -analysis and verification of the requirement against collision for 35MJ recommended by DNV was performed using LS-Dyna software. The colliding ship used a 7,500ton of shore supply vessel, and five scenarios of collisions were selected. From the results, all conditions do not satisfy the class requirement of 35MJ. The loading conditions associated with chord collision are reasonable collision energy of 15M and brace collisions are 6MJ. Therefore, it can be confirmed that the identical collision criteria by DNV need to be modified based on collision scenarios and colliding members.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.337-342
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• 2016

A spudcan is mounted on the lower leg of the jack-up rig, a device for preventing a rollover of a structure and to support the structure in a stable sea floor. At the time of inserting the surface of the spud can to penetrate when the sand layer is stable and smoothly pulled to the clay layer, and at that time of recovery when uploading the spud can is equipped with a water injection device. In this study, it is significant to optimize the shape of pipelines holes for water injection device and it was set in two kinds of shape, the oval and round. Interpretation of the subject into the site of Gulf of Mexico offshore Wind Turbine Installation Vessels (WTIV) was chosen as a target platform. Using the ANSYS Workbench commercial programs, optimal design was conducted. The results of this study can be applied to the hole-shaped design of various marine structures.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.103-113
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• 2020

Jack-up drilling rigs are widely used in the offshore oil and gas exploration industry. Although originally designed for use in shallow waters, trends in the energy industry have led to a growing demand for their use in deep sea and harsh environmental conditions. To extend the operating range of jack-up units, their design must be based on reliable analysis while eliminating excessive conservatism. In current industrial practice, jack-up drilling rigs are designed using the working(or allowable) stress design (WSD) method. Recently, classifications have been developed for specific regulations based on the load and resistance factor design (LRFD) method, which emphasises the reliability of the methods. This statistical method utilises the concept of limit state design and uses factored loads and resistance factors to account for uncertainly in the loads and computed strength of the leg components in a jack-up drilling rig. The key differences between the LRFD method and the WSD method must be identified to enable appropriate use of the LRFD method for designing jack-up rigs. Therefore, the aim of this study is to compare and quantitatively investigate the differences between actual jack-up lattice leg structures, which are designed by the WSD and LRFD methods, and subject to different environmental load-to-dead-load ratios, thereby delineating the load-to-capacity ratios of rigs designed using theses methods under these different enviromental conditions. The comparative results are significantly advantageous in the leg design of jack-up rigs, and determine that the jack-up rigs designed using the WSD and LRFD methods with UC values differ by approximately 31 % with respect to the API-RP code basis. It can be observed that the LRFD design method is more advantageous to structure optimization compared to the WSD method.