How do we get the load? Well, for onshore applications load only come from dead load, live load and wind load (for simple structure) but for offshore structure there are much more to be considered. We need to consider environmental load including wave, wind and current apart from dead and live load. In most of the time, environmental load governs as the factor to determine the critical point of the structure when resisting the load. That's mean environmental loading is much more influential compared to dead and live load in offshore structures. Well, that's logic since part of dead and live load is taken care of by structural buoyancy.

Morrison's equations is the key to transform this environmental condition to loading the analysis, of course we also need to calculate the wave kinematic factor, current blockage factor, conductor shielding factor, drag and inertia coefficient and bla bla bla...but one thing for sure is we will definitely not going to calculate the load manually. You can if you wanted to but I don't have much time and brain to do it myself so I opted to run it using WAJAC. We will touch more on the procedure and how to run the environmental load in my next posting.