A bit about spudcans

Today’s Technical Word of the Day is spudcan.

What’s a spudcan? A spudcan, answers Answers.com to that question, “is the foot on a leg of a ‘Jack-up’ type oil platform.” This short, possibly exciting video is about a spudcan—specifically about a Tarzan spudcan on a gorilla-class rig:

This next video shows a driveby of a gorilla-class rig:

And this third video shows Tarzan, who is related to spudcans only in name:

“And what of penetration resistance?” you may ask. For info on that, consult this study:

“Penetrometer-Based Assessment of Spudcan Penetration Resistance,” Junhwan Lee, Mark Randolph, Journal of Geotechnical Geoenvironmental Engineering, 137 587 2011.Epub 28 October 2010. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)GT.1943-5606.0000469. (Thanks to investigator Tom Gill for bringing it to our attention.)