3R38. Hydrodynamique des Structures Offshore. (French). - B Molin (Ecole Superieure d’Ingenieurs, Marseille, France). Editions Technip, Paris. 2002. 415 pp. Softcover. ISBN 2-7108-0815-3. $84.00.
Reveiwed by JH Ferziger (Dept of Mech Eng, Stanford Univ, Stanford, CA 94305-3030).
This book, whose title’s English meaning should be clear, is a new work by a well-known French researcher about the behavior of the offshore structures used in the petroleum industry in a wave environment. It covers the subject quite well. Most of the material found in the English-language works on this subject by Sarpkaya and Isaacson, Faltinsen, and Chakrabarti, all of which were published before 1990, are to be found here as well. Molin’s book also includes the results of recent research not found in those works.
The first chapter gives a classification of the types of offshore structures and introduces some of the important parameters. The second chapter presents the description of the sea state in terms of spectra and probability density functions of amplitude and period. Short discussions of the wind profile and internal waves are also given.
Chapter 3 presents the theory of water waves including the Stokes theory up to order five, corrections to the simple theory, non-monochromatic waves, and spectra. There is just a little about nonlinear interactions of waves and breaking, but those subjects could easily be the basis of an entire other book.
The fourth chapter, entitled Small Bodies, is essentially about flows over cylinders with applications to towers and cables. Other than the flow over circular cylinders, topics covered include non-circular cylinders, proximity effects, roughness, flow induced vibration, and others.
The following three chapters, which form the main part of the book, are about computing the forces and moments on large bodies, eg, platforms and the like. Chapter 5 covers the linear theory including diffraction effects, approximate theories, and a very short mention of numerical techniques. The problems of multiple bodies, sloshing in tanks, and the design of anchors are also covered.
Second-order and other nonlinear effects are the subjects of Chapter 6. This chapter also includes discussion of viscous effects, the effect of a current, and the design of anchors. Comparisons with experimental results are given.
A number of other nonlinear effects are covered in Chapter 7, including still higher-order effects, hydrodynamic impact forces, parametric instabilities, and porous structures.
Finally, Chapter 8 discusses experimental tests in wave and towing tanks, giving information of the design of the tanks, the design of the models, the choice of scale, the generation of waves, and the analysis of the results.
In general, the material is well selected and chosen for its practical applicability. It is well written, but it does vary from quite mathematical theoretical treatment to methods of estimating forces for practical design. It could have included more about computational methods of treating the problem, but that would have added considerable length.
Overall, Hydrodynamique des Structures Offshore is an excellent work on the design of offshore facilities by an expert in the field; it includes a number of recent results not found in the earlier works. This book is highly recommended to both those interested in learning about the field and those actively involved in the design of offshore structures.
