R.A.Ganorkar* et al.

/ (IJITR) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH

Volume No. 1, Issue No. 6, October - November 2013, 588 - 590.

R.A.GANORKAR
Assistant Professor
Department of Civil Engineering,
PIGCE, Nagpur.

ASHTASHIL V. BHAMBULKAR
Assistant Professor
Department of Civil Engineering,
REC, Raipur,

P.I.RODE
Assistant Professor
Department of Civil Engineering,
PIGCE, Nagpur.

Abstract:- Offshore flare bridge is a connecting bridge, it connects the process platform and flare
platforms. The bridge is used for transport men, material and unused crude oil. Offshore design is
slightly complicated due to harsher environment, also construction and installation of structures to
suit offshore environment makes design challenging due to heavier weights. These structures are
analyzed by, In place analysis, Lift analysis, and Load-out analysis. At offshore, tubular construction
recommended due to the shape, circular cross section which attracts fare less wind loads, hence
majority of the offshore structures are of steel tubular construction. In this paper analysis and design
of an offshore flare bridge of length 132.76m, width 5.5m and height 8.5m, done for gravity load like
self-weight of the bridge and live load from men, materials and unused crude oil weights and wind
load. The behavior of the bridge is analyzed for 4 different wind speeds; similar procedure is followed
by, China, Abu Dhabi, Canada and India.
Keywords- offshore Bridge, lift analysis, load out analysis, gravity load, wind load
I.

INTRODUCTION

The design of structures can be broadly divided

into onshore structural design and offshore
structural design. Offshore structural design is
slightly complicated due the harsher environment.
Also construction and installation of structures to
suit offshore environment makes design
challenging due to heavier weights. Offshore
structures can be broadly divided into fixed type
template platforms and floating units. Fixed type
platforms mainly comprises of well head
platforms (oil extraction platforms), process
platforms, living quarter platforms, flare
platforms and bridges. The present study
regarding fixed type platforms like bridges, the
bridge is connected process platforms to flare
platforms. In this study the flare bridge is
analyzed by following methods, In-place
analysis, Lift analysis, Load-out analysis and
study the behavior of bridge for different wind
speeds for different places like, China, Abu
Dhabi, Canada and India.
1.1 Historical Development
The first oil and gas operations over water took
place in Summerland, California, in 1896, where
wells were drilled from piers extending from
shore. In 1909, wells were drilled in Ferry Lake
Louisiana, using a wood deck erected on a
platform supported by cypress trunks driven as
pilling. The technology of offshore platform
design and construction has grown steadily over
the past four decades as the industry has spread
throughout the world and into deeper water.
However new types of platforms offer promise of
extending platform capability significantly. These
are loosely identified as complaint structures,
which were design to move with the forces of

ISSN 2320 5547

wind, wave & current rather than rigidly resist

them.
1.2 Offshore Developments in India
Bombay High is an offshore oilfield 160 km off
the coast of Mumbai. The oil operations are run
by Indias Oil and Natural Gas Corporation
(ONGC). The first offshore well sunk in 1974. As
of 2004, it supplied 14% of Indias oil
requirement and accounted for about 38% of all
domestic production. Crude oil produced from
Bombay High is of very good quality as
compared to crudes produced in Middle East.
Bombay High crude as more than 60% paraffinic
content while light Arabian crude has only 25%
paraffin.
II.

ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

The flare bridge is analyzed and designed using

Staad Pro software, the flare bridge consists two
horizontal levels, one is walk way and other is
crude oil carrying flare pipe support. The walk
way supports grating and hand rail. The crude oil
carrying flare pipe support is 3.104 m above from
the bottom chord of the bridge, the flare lines are
of 4 pipes with diameters 10, 14, 28, and 16
respectively. The present flare bridge is designed
using tubular steel section except walk way, walk
way is designed using I-sections.
2.2 Support condition
The flare bridge designed with one end as pinned
end and other end as sliding support. At the
pinned end, all the 3 (three) translations are held
and at the sliding end, only vertical and across
translations are held. Along the bridge translation
is released for any expansion that may occur due
to temperature variations.

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Page | 588

R.A.Ganorkar* et al. / (IJITR) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH

Volume No. 1, Issue No. 6, October - November 2013, 588 - 590.

The flare bridge is analyzed for following loads,

dead load, live load, and wind load. The self
weight of the modeled structure shall be
computed by the STAAD Pro V8i. A contingency
of 15% has been considered for calculation of
weights to account for stiffeners and internal ring
stiffeners and paint weights. The live load is
applied directly on the walk way bridge i.e 2.415
kn/m2, and flare pipe content weight is taken as
25% of its volume. Eight direction wind
incidences are considered in compliance with the
directional environmental data. The wind loads
have been calculated based on recommendations
of API-RP-2A (4.4).

Arab Emirates, China and Bharatha). The

following figs show the variation of deflection
and base shear for different wind speed across the
globe.
300

200
150
100
50

The bridge is analyzed by following conditions

b)

c)

In place condition when the bridge is

installed, it will remain there for its
service life. During this period, the
bridge will be subjected to operational
wind loads, extreme storm wind along
with operational loads like live loads,
flare pipe dead and content loads.

Offshore Lift condition This analysis

is mandatory to check the structural
adequacy when bridge is lifted in one
piece during installation.
Yard Load out condition This analysis
checks the adequacy of bridge structure
during loading out the bridge from
construction yard on to the transport
barge. The present study considers the
loading out the bridge using trailers.

The maximum unity ratio for all the load case is

1.0 except extreme wind load case. For extreme
storm wind load case unity ratio is restricted to
1.33, due to the fact that 1/3 increase in allowable
stress can be considered based on codal
provisions.
III.

RESULTS

The allowable global deflection for in-place

analysis is (l/360) i.e. 368.77mm, the maximum
vertical deflection is 285.83, and hence, design is
ok.
The allowable deflection for lift analysis and yard
load out analysis is (l/180) i.e.231.27mm, the
maximum deflection is 91.67mm, and 33.41mm,
respectively, and hence, design is ok.
The bridge deflections are also checked to
investigate abnormal behavior. From the
analyses, it is found that bridge deflections are
within allowable limits. Also sensitivity study has
been performed on the bridge configuration by
considering the different wind speed extracted at
various locations across the globe Canada, United
ISSN 2320 5547

50

100

Wind speed in m/s

Fig. 1 Wind Load against Deflection

Base shear in kn

a)

Deflecti
on in X
directio
n
Defletio
n in Y
directio
n
Deflecti
on in Z
directio
n

250
Deflection in mm

2.3 Loads

1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0

Base
Shear in
kn

50

100

Wind speed in m/s

Fig. 2 Wind Load against Base Shear
IV.

CONCLUSIONS

From the above studies it can be concluded that

bridge is safe for intended operation, i.e. inservice condition of the bridge as well as load-out
and lift condition and it is observed that central
top chord and bottom chord members are more
sensitive to wind loads. The base shear variation
of the bridge is approximately linear.
SOFTWARE USED AND REFERENCES
[1]

STAAD Pro V8i`-Release 20.07.04.12.

[2]

IS: 800 - 1998 Code of Practice For

General Construction in Steel, reaffirmed
2007.

[3]

API-RP-2A Recommended Practice for

Planning, Designing and Constructing
Fixed Offshore Platforms Working
Stress Design - December 2000.

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R.A.Ganorkar* et al. / (IJITR) INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INNOVATIVE TECHNOLOGY AND RESEARCH

Volume No. 1, Issue No. 6, October - November 2013, 588 - 590.

[4]

DNV RP C205 Environmental

Condition & Environmental Loads.

[5]

Various literatures for extraction of wind

speeds at different locations across the
globe.

[6]

Bitner-Gregersen
E.M.
(1996),
Distribution
of
Multidirectional
Environmental Effects, Proceedings of
15th International Conference of Offshore
Mechanics and Arctic Engineering;
OMAE 1996; Florence, Italy.

[7]

Bitner-Gregersen, E. M. and S. Haver

(1991) Joint Environmental Model for
Reliability Calculations, Proceedings of
the 1st International Offshore and Polar
Engineering
Conference,
Edinburgh,
United Kingdom, August 11-15, 1991.

[8]

Chakrabarti, S.K. (1987) Hydrodynamics

of Offshore Structures. WIT Press.

[9]

Sarpkaya, T. and Isaacson, M. (1981).

Mechanics of wave forces on offshore
structures. Van Nostrand Reinhold
Company.

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