Bücher der Reihe Synthesis Lectures on Ocean Systems Engineering

The use of environmental data to support science, technology, and marine operations has evolved dramatically owing to long-term ocean observatories, unmanned platforms, satellite and coastal remote sensing, data assimilative numerical models, and high-speed communications. Actionable environmental information is regularly produced and communicated from quality-controlled measurements and skillful forecasts. The characterization of complex oceanographic processes is more difficult compared to inland features because of the difficulty in obtaining observations from often remote and hazardous locations. Regardless, coastal and ocean engineering projects and operations require the collection and analysis of meteorological and oceanographic data to fill information gaps and the running of numerical models to characterize regions of interest. Data analytics are also essential to integrate disparate marine data from national archives, in situ sensors, imagery, and numerical models to meet project requirements. Holistic marine environmental characterization is essential for data-driven decision making across the science and engineering lifecycle (e.g., research, production, operations, end-of-life).Many marine science and technology projects require the employment of an array of instruments and models to characterize spatially and temporally variable processes that may impact operations. Since certain environmental conditions will contribute to structural damage or operational disturbances, they are described using statistical parameters that have been standardized for engineering purposes. The statistical description should describe extreme conditions as well as long- and short-term variability. These data may also be used to verify and validate models and simulations. Environmental characterization covers the region where engineering projects or maritime operations take place. For vessels that operate across a variety of seaways, marine databases and models are essential to describe environmental conditions. Data, which are used for design and operations, must cover a sufficiently long time period to describe seasonal to sub-seasonal variations, multi-year, decadal, multi-decadal, and even climatological factors such as sea level rise, coastal winds, waves, and global ocean temperatures. Combined data types are essential for the computation of environmental loads for the region of interest. Typical factors include winds, waves, currents, and tides. Some regions may require consideration of biofouling, earthquakes, ice, salinity, soil conditions, temperature, tsunami, and visibility. Observations are also used for numerical forecasts, but errors may exist due to inexact physical assumptions and/or inaccurate initial data, which can cause errors to grow to unacceptable levels with increased forecasting times. Overall, marine environmental characterization tools, from observational data to numerical modeling, are critical to today's science, engineering, and marine operational disciplines.

As pointed out by other researchers, hybrid structures in ocean engineering are based on flat concrete foundations. Due to wave action these foundations are exposed to different pressure distributions on the top and bottom sides. As a result, the bottom side is exposed to a saddle type pressure distribution leading to huge forces on the foundation. Indeed, such huge forces have been observed at a number of offshore platforms installed in the North Sea.In an attempt to turn a problem into an advantage, the concept in this work aims to develop an integrated system to harness and harvest ocean wave energy right at the seabed. The long-term interest is to develop integrated devices that can be used as actuators or sensors, which, due to low manufacturing cost, can be employed in large quantities for control of ocean engineering systems, e.g., maritime renewable power-plants, or monitoring of marine processes, e.g., oceanographic sensing.A key element to the proposed system is the nonlinear coupled electromechanical oscillator unit, the dynamics of which are investigated with a novel approach in this work. The fundamental nature of the oscillator at hand makes it an excellent choice for applications involving oceanic transducers consisting of a dry driving electrical stator physically separated from a wet-driven payload mechanism. Without such units available at a low cost and a large number, harvesting the energy of a vibrating plate at seabed may prove impractical.

In a government-aided research project carried out at Cochin University, the inventor of the Water-Train demonstrated that his invention requires only 24 BTU/ton-km of energy whereas barges use 328 BTU in the same Inland water transportation situation. The use of this Water-Train can invariably curtail, to a large extent, the emission of greenhouse gasses thereby decreasing the effect on global warming. Conventional water vehicles use screw propellers which have high reacting energy loss in propulsion whereas the Water-Train relies on the earth for reaction which is an infinite mass causing no reacting energy loss at all. The propelled water takes away a large quantity of kinetic energy (1/2,,,,,,,,2 where its mass is ,,,, and velocity is ,,,,). Water-Train requires a monorail rigidly fixed to the earth through cross arms and pillars for applying the traction/propulsion force. The reacting body is the earth and so the traction efficiency tends toward 100%. It utilizes low friction of water and also the vehicles are connected serially like a locomotive and hence the wave making and skin resistances are also reduced. The NITIE study conducted earlier in India showed that diesel and electric trains use 166.3 BTU and 105.76 BTU, respectively, for the same purpose.

The dynamic behavior of pipelines describes the time-varying continuous response of these structures under extreme effects, that are generated by the surrounding environment (waves and sea currents) and motions imposed by the host floating facility. This book describes all known impacts that affect the behavior and operation of a pipeline conveying an inner flow for underwater applications. "Known Impacts" are those phenomena that are considered important according to practice and experience. Underwater pipelines are typical, unique structures that are attached to unique floating facilities. The design and utilization of underwater pipelines depend strongly on the installation site and the intended application's particulars. It is possible that future technology demands will require us to cope with additional challenges that will be considered important for the design and operation of underwater pipelines, leading inevitably to the enhancement of the "known challenges".

The themes of this monograph include modern engineering problems of marine traffic engineering, focusing on what this discipline deals with: navigational safety assessment methods. These include: criteria of assessing navigational safety in restricted areas, navigation risk, as a complex criterion of navigational safety assessment in waterway systems, models of navigation risk determination used worldwide, conditions of safe operation of ships on waterways determined by using navigation risk, minimum safe tug assistance on port waterways, navigation risk management in waterway systems with a description of a computer program for model-based tests of navigational safety on Southern Baltic waterways.

This book has been written to account for improvements in the regulatory regime for shipboard health, safety and welfare. It considers the various regulations and statutory requirements for sanitation, the provision of potable and non-drinkable water, food and provisions, disease and infectious transfer, management of vectors and general health and safety onboard modern merchant and cruise ships.