FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

What happens when there is a storm?

The air exchange between the cylinders effectively distributes the wave induced loads and thereby reduces the peak loads on the platform. This makes it easier for the platform to survive a storm. Further, every PSP is designed for its environment. One of the design criteria is survival in the "one hundred year storm". In such a severe storm, with a smaller platform, motion may force a temporary secession of platform functions, but survival should not be a problem.

Has it ever been done before?

Not per se. But that is true for every high rise building built as well. As with a skyscraper, all the elements that comprise the PSP have been done before.

• There are concrete ship hulls built in WWI that are being used as floating breakwaters to this day. So the material works.
• The Oakland Bay Bridge was built on foundations in the 30s that used concrete floating on compressed air in cylinders during their construction. So it is proven that indirect floatation works.
• The CIDS, a bottom standing oil production platform that has to withstand crushing ice flows up in Alaska, was built with a foundation comprised of closely packed cylinders in array with top and bottom plates. So the strength of the structure is proven. In fact, the designer of that platform is a consultant on PSP projects and states that the CIDS project should be viewed as establishing the design and the PSP as improving it.
• The attributes of the PSP were proven by Float in the wave tank, so that which makes it unique has been established by the same method used for all ship and platform designs.
• If the question refers to a floating airport, Kansai is a successful offshore airport. The Japanese studied floating it. As it turned out, the only mistake they made was NOT floating it.
  

If it is such a good idea, why hasn't it been done before?

This is the question of the ages. We have had wheels for centuries. We have had luggage for centuries. Why is it only in the last twenty years that we have put wheels on luggage? Seriously, the pressure to move, what at present are land based structures and functions, offshore has been absent. However, demographics, economics and environmental concerns are beginning to force a change. The PSP, clearly the most suitable technology in form and function, will be realized many times over in the coming years.

What happens if there is a catastrophic loss of air pressure?

The channels through which the air moves can be designed with emergency valves so that the affected area can be isolated. But in addition, the intersticial volumes -- the volumes between the outside walls of the arrayed cylinders -- provide a positive displacement reserve buoyancy. The design loads can be set so that, in the unlikely loss of all air pressure, the platform would remain afloat.