Offshore and marine concrete structures have not received enough attention in the recent past, at least in the United States. The complexity and safety concerns associated with these structures are such that they probably need more attention compared to many other types of concrete structures. Also, offshore and marine concrete structures are so global in nature that there is a higher need for better coordination and synchronization of design, construction, inspection, and maintenance practices in different parts of the world. A two-part session, titled “Offshore and Marine Concrete Structures: Past, Present, and Future,” was held at the Spring 2019 ACI Concrete Convention and Exposition on March 24-28 in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. The session, sponsored by ACI Committee 357, Offshore and Marine Concrete Structures, highlighted accomplishments of the past, current state-of-the-practice, and a path for the future. This ACI Special Publication (SP) is a compilation of select papers presented at the session. The efforts of all the reviewers in assuring the quality of this publication is greatly acknowledged.

This paper will present the challenges and unique aspects associated with increasing the capacity of one of the container wharves at Barbour’s Cut Terminal to support new Ship-to-Shore (STS) container cranes with gage lengths of 100 ft. (30 m), which was an upgrade from the previous container cranes that featured 50-ft. (15 m) gage lengths. The design criteria included achieving an additional 50 years of service life from the existing elements and new elements; therefore, the assessment results and techniques used for service life modeling will be discussed. In the new structural elements, service life modeling was used to determine the necessary concrete mixture characteristics, including use of fly ash and corrosion-resistant reinforcement, to achieve the required service life.

This paper will also discuss the design approach, including the use of springs to represent the soil-structure interaction, for determining the demands on the various components. In addition, the interaction between the new structure and existing structure and the resulting torsion will be discussed. Finally, various lessons learned from using strut-and-tie modeling, including the relative stiffness of the chord elements and need for three-dimensional modeling, will be summarized.

This paper discusses the structural assessment and repair of a waterfront concrete pier. This paper also discusses the responsibilities of the construction team through the investigation and repair process. The apron around the pier is an exposed concrete deck supported on steel beams and concrete caissons. The concrete apron exhibited various deteriorated conditions, including cracking and spalling. The pier owner requested a structural condition survey of the pier apron to determine the extent of the damage and to develop a repair program.

The design team proposed an investigation and repair program in accordance with various industry standards, including ACI 357, ACI 562, and ACI 364.1R. The challenge of this project was the limited budget and time allocated by the owner to perform the investigation and repair. As a result, the investigation was limited to visual observations only, and the repairs were restricted to repairing unsafe conditions only. Despite the investigation and repair construction limitations, the design team work around the needs and budgets of the owner and managed to restore the structure to a safe condition. However, the effects of insufficient evaluation of the structure before rehabilitation, had an adverse effect on the project schedule and extent of repairs performed. Also, due to the project budget limitations, the responsibilities of the design team were challenged.

In 1978, the Canadian Centre of Mineral and Energy Technology (CANMET) initiated a longterm study to determine the performance of concrete in a marine environment. Between 1978 and 1994, over three hundred prisms as part of 14 different experimental phases were placed at the mid-tide level at the Treat Island exposure site. Treat Island is an outdoor exposure site operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and lies in the Passamaquoddy Bay, part of the Bay of Fundy, near the town of Eastport in Maine. Following 25 years of exposure, the blocks were retrieved after being exposed to tidal conditions representing approximately 18,250 cycles of wetting and drying, and 2,500 cycles of freezing and thawing. This paper presents the durability performance of concrete from several phases of the CANMET study. This includes concrete incorporating various levels of supplementary cementing materials (up to 80% by mass of cementing material in some cases), with normal density and light-weight aggregate. The paper also compares output from the service-life model Life-365 with experimental chloride profile data. The results indicate the efficacy of SCMs in increasing the concrete resistance to chloride penetration. However, use of very high levels of these materials was found to render the concrete more susceptible to surface scaling. The results also showed that Life-365 model can predict chloride penetration adequately with very simple inputs.

An offshore concrete Gravity-Based-Structure (GBS) is a massive concrete structure placed on the seafloor and held in place strictly by its own weight, without need for anchors. This paper focuses on concrete GBSs used as the base of integrated oil drilling and production platforms. The summary of key distinct structural features of several major GBSs, since the first Ekofisk GBS (installed in the North Sea, offshore Norway, in 1973) until the latest Hebron GBS (installed in the Grand Banks, Canada, in 2017), is presented. This paper also discusses several unique loads that GBSs have to resist. An overview of structural analysis and design methodology is described in detail. Key considerations for preliminary sizing of GBS structural components are presented. Typical construction phases, methods, and the importance of constructability are explained. Finally, potential future research topics that would result in a more cost-effective offshore concrete GBS are discussed.