Patent ID: 6848863

Claim:
A buoyancy system for an offshore floating platform comprising: a steel buoyancy can having a plurality of chambers; a riser positioned within said buoyancy can and longitudinally extending through said buoyancy can; and a plurality of composite buoyancy modules contained within each said chamber of said buoyancy can, each said module being fixed axially along said riser within said air can, cach said module made of at least two layers of engineered material selected from group consisting of glass fiber/polymeric resin, carbon fiber/polymeric resin, hybrid glass/carbon fiber polymeric resin, rubber reinforced with nylon fibers, and rubber reinforced with steel fibers, wherein said plurality of composite buoyancy modules provides a redundancy in the required buoyancy to support the riser, wherein the interior of at least one of the buoyancy modules is divided into at least two compartments for providing redundancy to the buoyancy system in the event of partial failure of the buoyancy module.