PAVING THE WAVES

One of the most important aspects of the design of floating facilities such as ships, floating offshore structures or floating houses is stability. Its impact on both general safety and operational aspects renders it a fundamental consideration already in preliminary design stages. Usually, the concept of sufficient stability of floating buildings is associated with the ability to keep an allowed heel angle and residual freeboard, despite the action of the heeling moment. Once in the water, a floating object has to withstand different environmental conditions. It is always acted upon by forces from various factors. The main sources of load are wind, waves and the shift of inhabitants. However, the challenges in the assessment of stability are also connected to how a floating structure responds to these sources of load and also to the method of performing a stability analysis. This paper revisits several challenges encountered in the stability calculations and in the prediction of the behavior of floating buildings. A review of the current regulations was also performed in this aspect. The obtained results indicate the necessity and also direction of further considerations related to the safety of stationary floating objects