Buoy Technology

Abstract

Small buoy and mooring systems have a long history and many uses ranging from navigation and marking buoys, meteorological monitoring systems, oceanographic measurement systems, wave-measurement buoys, and tsunami warning systems. Many of these designs are very mature and have benefited from decades of field experience. Others are more recent and rely heavily on synthetic materials, modern electronics, and analytical and computer analysis techniques to create high-performance systems that operate in extreme depths, boundary currents, remote locations, enable a power and data connection to submerged instrumentation, or have predictable responses to allow accurate measurement of the sea state. The material presented here applies to systems that are less than approximately 5 m in diameter and have masses less than 5000 kg or so. This chapter outlines the various choices facing designers of these systems, presents approaches to the design of standard systems, presents the material properties of commonly used materials, and describes the analysis techniques and tools typically applied to systems that must meet specialized functional requirements. The chapter concludes with diagrams of several mooring systems that have been successfully fielded.