Abstract
An extensive development programme designed to prove the major benefits which would arise from the use of castings as structural elements in offshore production platforms is reviewed. The development work provided substantial evidence that castings could be used to replace the conventional welded node joints in steel-jacket platforms and would provide significant improvements in fatigue life and design flexibility. Two 25 t prototypes and several small nodes have been cast and a comprehensive destructive and non-destructive examination of one of these has been carried out under the supervision of Lloyd's Register of Shipping.
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