About Us

Message from the OOAE Chair, 2009-2010

                                                                                                                                                                                                      OMAE 2010 in Shanghai has concluded and by all measures it was an outstanding success. Several years ago, the division made a strategic decision to hold the conference in Shanghai, the first ever in China. This decision reflected the tremendous growth in offshore activity and economies in the region and the huge potential still to be realized. The decision paid off beyond our most optimistic projections at the time. From the number and quality of the conference papers, and the number of attendees, the 29th conference was a must-attend event. Its success was a result of the hard work of the Local Organizing Committee, and specifically of the conference chair Professor Gang Chen and co-chair Professor Jianmin Yang, both of Shanghai Jiao Tong University. A big thank you also goes to Dr. Christina Wang of ABS, the Technical Program Chair. I would like to express the Division’s thanks to them for their hard work and dedication in organizing this outstanding conference.

The OOAE Division of ASME is concerned with a wide range of technical competencies in the offshore and arctic areas, including environmental loading, hydrodynamic behavior, materials selection, structural strength, safety, and new systems. Historically, there has been an emphasis on ships, floating units and subsea equipment associated with the oil and gas industry. The OMAE Conference is widely recognized as the primary international forum for technical exchanges in these areas. The broad-based participation of academia, industry and regulatory institutions testify to this.

Recently, ocean renewable energies, such as those from waves, tides, currents and offshore wind, and ocean mining have provided new areas of substantial interest. Who better to solve the problems and challenges in these areas than those who have been working in related fields and have developed some of the most sophisticated technology in any field for the harsh offshore environment?
The recent disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has shown, however, that not all answers are known and that not all necessary technology has been developed. There is still much work to do obviously, and it drives home the importance of conferences such OMAE, which provide a forum for new technologies and new knowledge to be shared with colleagues worldwide, helping to advance our knowledge and our capabilities ever further. We wish our colleagues working on the current problem every quick success.

 My year as OOAE Division Chair ends at the end of June. It has been a rewarding year. It has closed out with an outstanding conference and our new and updated website. We are even getting onto Facebook, because that has become such a ubiquitous communication venue, especially for the younger colleagues among us. 

The division chair for 2010-1011 will be Dr. Walter Kuehnlein, a most able colleague. I wish him all the best in this coming year. And I hope to see everyone next June in Rotterdam at OMAE 2011.

H. Ronald Riggs, Chair, OOAE Division
University of Hawaii