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US 4,055,052 AGranted
Arctic island
AssigneeExxon Production Research Company
InventorMichel Metge
Life of this patent
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AssigneeExxon Production Research Company
InventorMichel Metge
Estimating the term…
A man-made island and a method for constructing the same in an ice covered body of water using portions of the ice sheet as integral parts of the island. The island is formed by placing fill material, such as sand or gravel, on a portion of the ice sheet to ground that portion. The grounded ice sheet is cut free from the surrounding ice sheet and matter, such as fill material, blocks of ice, etc., is placed on the grounded portion of the ice sheet to construct an island in the body of water. Additional portions of the ice sheet can be separated and grounded on top of previously grounded portions prior to placing matter on the stack of grounded ice pieces to construct the island.
A method for constructing an island in a body of water having an ice sheet floating thereon which comprises:
An offshore island constructed in a body of water having an ice sheet floating thereon comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
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Placed by lowering the supporting construction to the bottom, e.g. with subsequent fixing thereto: ice-structures
Hydraulic engineering
Term ended 25 Oct 1994 (estimated)
USPTO file history isn’t available for this patent, so only indexed dates are shown.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method for constructing an island in an ice-covered body of water using the natural sheet of ice as an integral part of the island.
2. Description of the Prior Art
FIGS. 1-4 are elevation views of an arctic body of water and an island in cross-section illustrating the steps of the method of constructing the island according to one embodiment of the present invention.
FIGS. 5-9 are elevation views of an arctic body of water and an island in cross-section illustrating the steps of the method of constructing the island according to another embodiment of the present invention.
Briefly, the method of the present invention for constructing a man-made island in polar regions comprises the step of placing fill material, which material is denser than the water, upon the naturally-occurring sheet of ice until the sheet of ice is grounded on the bottom of the body of water.
FIGS. 1 through 4 illustrate the steps of the method according to one embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 depicts a typical cross-section of a shallow polar body of water. A sheet of ice 1 is shown floating on top of the body of water 2. The floor or bottom of the body of water is indicated by the numeral 3.
IN FIG. 2, fill material 10 has been placed upon the natural sheet of ice 1 and the weight of the fill material 10 has caused the sheet of ice 1 to bend and ground on the floor 3 of the body of water 2. The fill material will generally have a density greater than that of the body of water and can be a material such as gravel or silt. The fill material can possibly be dredged or mined from nearby locations, or else transported to the island construction site by barge or truck.