Autoship CAD/CAM products have been used to design
and build virtually every type of vessel afloat, and
the Offshore industry is no exception. Below is an article
submitted by Richard Roper, Naval Architect (formerly
of Friede and Goldman), on how two ASC products were
used to design mobile offshore drilling units.
Autoship®
and Autohydro® Used
in Offshore Platform Engineering
by Richard Roper, Naval Architect, formerly
of Friede and Goldman
"More
than 100 currently operating mobile offshore drilling
units bear the F&G mark. With such a large number
of designs in service, Friede and Goldman is called
upon often to engineer upgrades that will press the
fleet into greater depths in search of oil.
Autohydro is our tool of choice for melding
the stipulated parameters into a set of sponsons for
a given upgrade. Often the customer will specify a desired
natural period, displacement, and loading condition.
We have even used Autohydro to create a "Surface
of Minimum Downflood Point Height". This gave the
owner of a drillship we upgraded this year the ability
to immediately place a new vent or relocate an old vent,
door, etc. in a safe position.
Autoship Systems products have also been an essential
part of the process of designing new rigs such as the
Smedvig SPU 380 for the Balder field in the Norwegian
North Sea.
Friede & Goldman was acquired in December of 1996
by J.L. Holloway Holdings. This has afforded our company
the opportunity to begin an aggressive pursuit of a
new family of technology-driven semi-submersible and
jack-up drilling rigs which will be better and more
efficient. The use of Autoship and Autohydro
will figure prominently in this effort.
One of the new designs currently under development
is the triangular semi-submersible pictured above. Extensive
use of command files to create models in Model Maker
and run files to simulate every conceivable condition
of stability in Autohydro have significantly
reduced the amount of time required to complete the
stability portion of the design spiral."
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