STAAD.Offshore

Help and Documentation

Bentley recognizes the importance of concise and accurate documentation of sophisticated engineering applications such as STAAD.Offshore. STAAD.Offshore electronic help contains a general overview of the product, a getting started manual, explanation of all the wave load generation input parameters, and important reference/example problems. This electronic help alone is sufficient to train a STAAD.Pro engineer to generate wave loads and transport loads using STAAD.Offshore.

Training

Bentley recognizes the importance for engineers to have the ability to quickly ramp up on new products in order to ensure timely completion of projects. Through the Bentley Institute, Bentley provides numerous options for engineers to quickly get up to speed with any Bentley products through proven training options.

Integration with STAAD.Pro

STAAD.Offshore has been integrated with STAAD.Pro since its introduction into the market in 1981.

STAAD.Offshore allows users create wave loading and transport loads on offshore structures. It can handle pipes, rectangular/square tubes, and open sections such as I-beams and channels, or other structural shapes by judicious selection of the wave force coefficients.

STAAD.Pro is a general purpose structural analysis and design tool that is being used to design offshore structures. A structure modeled in STAAD.Pro can be exported to STAAD.Offshore to perform the wave load generation or transport load generation.

International Presence

STAAD.Offshore entered the international scene with its implementation of the British codes. Currently, STAAD supports over 70 international codes and approximately 20 U.S. codes. Bentley has global offices staffed with engineers that develop, maintain, and support STAAD.Offshore and STAAD.Pro in their respective local regions. STAAD.Pro supports seven languages (English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, and Russian) through an engineering staff of over 80 engineers (Masters, PhDs, PEs). No other company has nearly half the staff supporting its products.

Broad Spectra of Wave Load Generation Options

The wave forces are calculated from Morison’s equation using either stream functions, Stokes 5th Order, or Airy linear theory, to compute the particle velocities and accelerations, or a user defined grid of velocities and accelerations. The program calculates the particle velocities, accelerations and wave force intensities along each member from which it accumulates the equivalent simple beam end forces for each joint of the structure in the global X, Y, and Z directions.

Using these joint forces, the total structure base shears and overturning moments are calculated. In addition, the weight and the total submerged buoyancy of the structure are computed together with the positions of center of gravity and buoyancy. Also, RAO motions can be applied to the structure, and the relative effects between the wave particle and structure motion are considered along with structure inertia force and gravity/tilt forces. Additionally, the program can consider the Doppler effect of current interaction with waves.

General Transport Load Generation

The transport load module calculates the inertia forces due to motion accelerations consisting of any combination of the 3-translational and 3-rotational degrees of freedom. Each degree of freedom has an associated phase angle relative to the center of rotation, which defines the wave crest position for the associated maximum amplitude. Therefore, the actual wave position defines the relative summation of each degree of freedom, in a load combination. This transport load generation can be generated for almost any STAAD.Pro model, which could be a crane, rig, pipe rack, equipment support, deck assembly, or others.

Generate Wave Loads Approaching from Direction

The wave forces on every member in the STAAD.Pro model can be calculated for a jacket structure for a wave approaching at any user specified angle. STAAD.Offshore requires you to input the wave positions that need to be considered for the load generation. For example, the image shows the user has requested STAAD.Offshore to perform wave load generation at 00 to 180o with a step of 90o. STAAD.Offshore will generate three load cases (wave at 00, 90o and 180o).

Ability to Add Lumped Masses for Transport Load Generation

Machines or equipment attached to a structure may not be modeled in a particular STAAD.Pro model. Engineers are often concerned about the extra inertia loads that the structure may experience when the structure is transported through a ship or a vessel. STAAD.Offshore has the capability of taking the masses or loads into account to generate the transport loads.

Interoperability

STAAD.Offshore is a part of the STAAD family of products, which are well linked with other Bentley products such as Structural Modeler (to generate layout drawings and quantity estimates) and ProSteel 3D (to do steel detailing). This feature of STAAD.Offshore eliminates the task of recreating the structure from scratch to do a wave or transport load generation.

For example, a steel detailer can easily create a structural model in Structural Modeler which can then be exported to STAAD.Pro for analysis and design. This STAAD.Pro model can also be exported to STAAD.Offshore to do wave and transport load generation.