Specifications
Although each structure has a set of attributes exclusive to itself, a number of specific properties compose a foundation, which is shared amongst each of our products. In the interest of providing a more thorough understanding of this unique foundation upon which all other design consideration are based, following are a number of comments relative to the significant features of our floating docks, fishing piers, wave attenuators, and custom marine structures. We hope you are favorably impressed with this information, and that it will be of some benefit to your ultimate decision.
If you wish to explore specifically customizable aspects of each structure we offer, please click the corresponding product on the left.
Monocoque Structure
Monocoque describes the premise of our product design - one that is entirely unique to the industry. Identical to the construction format of large aircraft fuselage and wing sections, a closely spaced arrangement of exterior framing walls, interior bulkheads, and upper and lower bodywork are fastened together in a highly dense format. The end result offers the strongest and most forgiving structural shape known to modern engineering principals, thus the reason behind its application to the aircraft industry as well as the world’s fastest racecar designs.
Dissipation of Energy Forces
Of the many unique characteristics that the monocoque structure carries, energy forces from wave, impact, wind, and anchorage loads are dissipated throughout the thousands of fasteners - translated and received as tensile forces on the upper and lower sheet steel body work - or as compressive forces over the network of timber framing and bulkheading.
Materials
Our hybrid construction format is a marriage of pressure treated #1 dense southern yellow pine exterior framing walls and interior bulkheads, heavily oversized galvanized structural steel components, and galvanized sheet steel, all joined together through an aggressive network of high strength fasteners. (Note: For water conditions that are not compatible with galvanized sheet steel, we offer a chemical coating alternative.)
Flotation Support
With virtually every square foot of an FDS floating pier receiving flat-bottom flotation support, our system offers two sources of superior stability. First, superimposed live loads are counteracted by said buoyancy support resulting in a comfortable, consistent, and predictable freeboard loss. Second, the bobbing reaction to wave and swell activity is much more subtle than that of any intermittent support design. Much like the bobbing difference between a heavy steel navigational aid and a small barge of similar weight, a total support flotation system inherits superior stability.
