OCEAN, OFFSHORE and ARCTIC ENGINEERING - Kivi Niria

Conference Highlights
Dr. Jan Vugts
Conference Highlights
Special Symposia
10 | www.asmeconferences.org/OMAE 2011
Jan H. Vugts Symposium on ‘Design Methodology of Offshore Structures’
Prof. Dr. ir. Jan H. Vugts has served a career of
more than 40 years in science and industry. After
graduating in 1963 as a naval architect, he was a
researcher at the Ship Hydromechanics Laboratory
in Delft with Professor Gerritsma, obtaining his
Doctoral degree for research on hydrodynamic
forces and ship motions in waves. In 1970, he joined
the Offshore Engineering Department of Shell for a
career in industry. Contrary to common practice at
the time, he recognized the impact of the random
dynamic environment on the behaviour of statically
as well as dynamically responding marine structures,
which necessitated accounting for the broad range
of excitation frequencies and using a probabilistic
instead of the usual deterministic approach. He
retired from Shell in 1996 as Senior Offshore
Engineering Consultant, having been involved with
floating as well as bottom founded structures of all
kinds. In 1992, he accepted a part-time Professorship
in Offshore Technology at the Technical University
of Delft, where besides his continued educational and
research contributions he entered the field of offshore
wind energy.
During his entire career he operated on the
interface of R&D and practical applications,
developing and promoting the development of
necessary expertise in combination with realistic
design and analysis methods for marine structures
in their physical environment. Subjects ranged inter
alia from probabilistic workability assessments for
floating equipment, to dynamic and fatigue analysis
of deep water fixed structures and (re)assessment
of existing offshore structures. In the 1970s, he
developed and performed the first ever spectral
fatigue analyses for a semi-submersible and the first
two fixed steel structures for Shell in the central and
northern North Sea. From the 1980s, he was further
active on marine safety, particularly as the instigator
of present-day site-specific assessments of jack-ups.
From the start in 1991 of efforts under the
auspices of ISO to produce international standards
for the petroleum and natural gas industries, he
has been the Dutch representative and a prominent
member of Committee ISO/TC 67/SC 7. After
retirement from Shell as well as from TU Delft he
continued this activity making major contributions
to the ISO 19900 series for offshore structures.
He was awarded the Research Prize 1978 for
Offshore Engineering of the Royal Institution of
Engineers in the Netherlands and is an Honorary
Member of its Offshore Engineering Department.
In 2007, he received the ASCE OTC Hall of Fame
Award for Pioneering Innovation and Lasting Impact
of his 1976 OTC paper ‘Probabilistic fatigue analysis
of fixed structures’. In 2009, he was one of three
nominees for the Award of Excellence for personal
achievements during an entire career from IRO,
the Dutch Association of Suppliers in the Oil & Gas
Industry.