A semi-submersible drilling vessel has a deckbox structure and a shaker room. A downward sloping mud return line is provided that passes mud from the diverter to the shaker room. In the shaker room there are one or more shale shaker devices, one or more upstream mud tanks arranged to receive gas cut mud from the one or more shale shaker devices, and a vacuum degasser having an inlet pipe extending into an upstream mud tank, a vacuum tank, a vacuum pump, and an outlet, and a degassed mud tank receiving degassed mud from the outlet of the vacuum degasser. The degassed mud tank has an effective height between the bottom thereof to the operational mud level in said degassed mud tank that is greater than the corresponding effective height of said one or more upstream mud tanks. The degassed mud tank is mounted so thatin operationthe operational mud level in said degassed mud tank is at least 1.5 meter, preferably at least 2 meters, higher than in said one or more upstream tanks with the vacuum degassers self-suction effect causing the mud to be pumped from the upstream tank, via the vacuum degasser, into the degassed mud tank.

Systems and methods are presented for deploying and using a floating platform using articulated spar legs used as a type of hull, each of the spar legs attached to the floating platform by an articulated connection. Each of the articulated spar legs being moveable from a horizontal to a vertical position, horizontal for transport and vertical for deployment of the floating platform. The articulated spar legs serve to support the floating position of the floating platform. The articulated spar legs are moved from horizontal to vertical position by controlling ballast imposed upon or within spar legs. Each of the articulated spar legs are moveable from a vertical to a horizontal position with a ballast changing method. Systems and methods are presented for extracting natural renewable energy from the environment surrounding the floating platform with energy capture devices modularly affixed to the platform and energy capture devices incorporated into the articulated spar legs.

A system, an arrangement and a method, all for motion damping of a floating marine structure. Also disclosed is a use of the system. The system has at least one dampening device configured to dampen a movement in one direction and allowing a movement in the opposite direction, and a suspension arrangement has a respective wire configured to suspend the at least one dampening device hanging at a suspended depth in the water from the marine structure and with the dampening device oriented so that a dampening force induced by the dampening device is subjected in the extension of the wire. Also, each dampening device is a passive damping device has a valve structure configured to dampen a movement in one direction and allowing a movement in the opposite direction essentially without damping interaction.

A floating platform for high-power wind turbines, comprising a concrete substructure, said concrete substructure forming the base of the platform, which remains semi-submerged in the operating position, and consisting of a square lower slab on which a series of beams and five hollow reinforced concrete cylinders are constructed, distributed at the corners and the center of said lower slab; a metal superstructure supported on the concrete substructure and forming the base for connection with the wind turbine tower, said tower being coupled at the center thereof; and metal covers covering each of the cylinders, on which the metal superstructure is supported and to which vertical pillars are secured, linked together by beams, which join at the central pillar by an element whereon the base of the wind turbine tower is secured.

A floating platform generating energy produced from wave energy. In one embodiment, the platform may be used to support a roadway to build a floating bridge. The platform may also include a wave break mechanism for additional stability and may submerge for storm survival. The platform may be constructed in modules to permit reconfiguration and management of resources. In other embodiments, the platform may support communities. The bridge may also provide transmission lines for conducting wave generated electricity back to the mainland. In further embodiments, the platform may generate pressurized air from wave energy and may store the pressurized air at depth in a plurality of air tanks arranged in sequence at different depths.

The floating structure (20) for supporting a marine wind turbine comprises a tower (21), a float (23), and a transition element (22) between the tower (21) and the float (23). The tower (21) has a tower tubular wall (31) having a tower axisymmetric outer surface about a central axis (5) defined by a tower generatrix, the float (23) has a float tubular wall (33) and a float lower end closing wall (34), the float tubular wall (33) has a float axisymmetric outer surface about the central axis (5) defined by a float generatrix, and the transition tubular wall (32) has a transition axisymmetric outer surface about the central axis (5) defined by a curved concave transition generatrix which is tangent to the tower generatrix. The transition axisymmetric outer surface of the transition element (22) has a transition upper diameter equal than a tower lower diameter (D1) and a transition lower diameter equal than a float upper diameter (D2). At least the float tubular wall (33), the float lower end closing wall (34) and the transition tubular wall (32) are made of reinforced concrete forming together a reinforced concrete monolithic body.

A floating body (4) for a spar-type offshore wind power generation facility floating sideways is raised by injecting ballast water at sea, by steps including a first step of decentering a center of gravity of the floating body for the spar-type offshore wind power generation facility by means of a center-of-gravity decentering device, and a second step of injecting the ballast water to raise upright the floating body for the spar-type offshore wind power generation facility. The center-of-gravity decentering device may be a weight (2) attached to an outer surface of the floating body, or a solid ballast (34) introduced in the floating body.

The floating system is a single column tension leg platform for a floating offshore wind turbine (SCTLP). The single column tension leg platform comprises a central main vertical floating column, a buoyant base attached to and disposed below the central main vertical floating column, a station keeping system attached to the buoyant base, and an inter array cable riser system. The buoyant base is of one of a triangular shape and a circular shape.

This invention is directed to a column floater with extended cylinder and a ring buoy-group, which comprises an upright buoy at a water surface, an extended cylinder, a positioning system and a topsides. The top of the upright buoy is above the water surface and a moonpool is either set or not in the center of the upright buoy through the top to the bottom. The extended cylinder, connecting to the bottom of the upright buoy and extending downwards, includes two types of fixed and sliding to form a column floater with fixed extended cylinder and a column floater with sliding extended cylinder respectively. The positioning system is one or two combined of mooring system and DP system. The column floater with extended cylinder is a new type floating platform with multi-purpose, combining advantages of the spar platform and the current cylindrical FPSO, high performance, safety and reliability.

An energy-harvesting compute grid includes computing assemblies that cooperate with mobile energy harvesters configured to be deployed on a body of water. The plurality of energy harvesters are positioned on and move adjacent to an upper surface of a body of water, and the locations of the energy harvesters can be monitored and controlled. The wide-spread gathering by the harvesters of environmental data within that geospatial area permits the forecasting of environmental factors, the discovery of advantageous energy-harvesting opportunities, the observation and tracking of hazardous objects and conditions, the efficient distribution of data and/or tasks to and between the harvesters included in the compute grid, the efficient execution of logistical operations to support, upgrade, maintain, and repair the cluster, and the opportunity to execute data-gathering across an area much larger than that afforded by an individual harvester (e.g., radio astronomy, 3D tracking of and recording of the communication patterns of marine mammals, etc.). The computational tasks can be shared and distributed among a compute grid implemented in part by a collection of individual floating self-propelled energy harvesters thereby providing many benefits related to cost and efficiency that are unavailable to relatively isolated energy harvesters, and likewise unavailable to terrestrial compute grids of the prior art.