Recently, study of marine space replacing land space draws world's attention, and a concept to design large structures, such as artificial island, floating offshore structure, marine city and airport, is being concerned. These large marine structures usually divided into comparatively smaller modules, then transported to on-site and finally assembled into a designed large structure. Modular floating structures, welded or bolted, are semi-permanent and strong, however manufacturing process for welding or bolting large floating structures under various loads is very difficult. Local structures are easy to break down due to the concentrated load.
On this background, this study focuses on the various connecting mechanisms for modular floating structures and a method that can be applied to the large modular floating marine structures. It is suggested, i.e, a connecting mechanism consisting of LEGO blocks and Korea traditional bar shape structure operating with a hydraulic cylinder. A case study of very large floating structures in this study is a possible offshore airport in Busan. It is assumed that the modular structures loaded with facilities of urban and traffic functions are integrated.
Connection structure in the form of LEGO blocks may be easier for connecting modular structures in the offshore field. The hydraulic cylindrical bar prevents the overall structure from being damaged, allowing motion between modular structures more flexible. Moreover, these modules are especially useful when a new module is added or removed.
For verification of suggested concept of connecting structures, two approches are tried. First, a differential equation of elastic beam is solved by a simple calculating for two units connected by hydraulic cylindrical bars. Then a structural analysis by a commercial finite element analysis program NX Nastran is performed to the same model.