Patents by Inventor Stephen A. Will

Stephen A. Will has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 5988949
    Abstract: An offshore jacket or compliant tower and method of installing an offshore jacket or compliant tower where the foundation piles do not initially support the jacket. The foundation piles are driven into the sea floor. Two or more temporary support piles are driven into the sea floor. Two or more docking piles are driven into the sea floor and extend a greater height above the sea floor than the foundation piles and the temporary support piles. The jacket, which includes flexpiles, is lowered into position such that it receives the docking piles. The docking piles locate and position the jacket above the temporary support piles and the foundation piles. The jacket is provided with vertical steel tubes that correspond to the location of the temporary support piles. A bulkhead in each vertical steel tube is vertically located such that the jacket is supported and leveled by the temporary support piles and not the foundation piles.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 10, 1997
    Date of Patent: November 23, 1999
    Inventor: Stephen A. Will
  • Patent number: 4705430
    Abstract: A deep water offshore drilling platform having a jacket secured to driven skirt piles at an elevation above the sea floor of at least 100 feet and upwards of 300 feet. A series of connecting plates transfer the structural forces of the platform from the jacket to the skirt piles at these elevated connections. Due to the transfer of these forces, the size and weight of the jacket below this elevation may be significantly reduced to lower the cost of the platform. Additionally, the well casing is an integral component of the supporting members of the platform and the upper region of this well casing is expanded and oriented vertically to provide spacing for the well head and to eliminate the need for more costly slant-well drilling.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 29, 1986
    Date of Patent: November 10, 1987
    Assignee: McDermott Incorporated
    Inventor: Stephen A. Will
  • Patent number: 4260291
    Abstract: In the installation of a jacket or substructure component of an offshore platform on the sea floor over an underwater fixture containing one or more wellheads, a jacket is first ballasted to rest in a vertical orientation on the sea floor. Power winches are mounted atop the jacket above the water line and anchored mooring lines are connected to the winches via fairlead sheaves which define points of attachment for the mooring lines to the jacket. The jacket is deballasted to float with a near sea bottom clearance and is maneuvered horizontally with the power winches toward the underwater fixture. Docking guides carried by the jacket engage vertical guideposts driven drilled into the sea floor at preselected locations relative to the underwater fixture to align the jacket with the underwater fixture. The jacket is then lowered into the desired on-bottom position during controlled ballasting procedures. Finally, piles are driven through hollow jacket columns to anchor the jacket to the sea bottom.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 27, 1979
    Date of Patent: April 7, 1981
    Assignee: J. Ray McDermott & Co., Inc.
    Inventors: Charles E. Young, Stephen A. Will