14 COLLAPSE OF TEXAS TOWER NO. 4 
The K-type brace with pin connections, as opposed to welded con- 
nections, was incorporated into the design for the underwater brac- 
ing system on tower No. 4 on the ground that the pin connection would 
eliminate secondary bending stresses because of its lesser rigidity. In 
the original design, the clearance or tolerance between the 8-inch 
diameter of the pin and the hole into which it was to be inserted 
called for 4g¢4 ich. 
All the towers were designed to withstand the forces of a 125-mile 
per hour wind coupled with a breaking wave of 35 feet in height. 
Shortly after the award of the contract for the design and specifi- 
cations of the Texas towers to the Moran, Proctor firm, the services 
of a Mr. Theodore Kuss were engaged as an employee of that firm. 
Mr. Kuss was the inventor of a method of erecting offshort struc- 
tures in deep water. His patent provided, in essence, that the tem- 
plate, consisting of the legs and their braces, would be completely 
fabricated in a shipyard, towed to the site in a horizontal attitude, 
and, through the flooding of buoyancy chambers, upended or tipped 
up to a vertical position. 
Up until the time of his employment with the Moran, Proctor firm, 
the patented Kuss method of erecting towers had not been considered 
by the Navy’s Bureau of Yards and Docks as a process to be utilized 
in. erecting tower No. 4. This method had never actually been used 
before its adaptation for tower No. 4 and has reportedly been used 
but once since then. In the Kuss patent it is stated : 
Another object of the invention is the provision of a structure of such a 
shape that it may be built economically and still have the required strength 
to resist stresses due to floating the same on water and those due to erection 
of the structure underwater.” 
The patent also contains a statement to the effect that a sudden 
swinging about the horizontal axis of the template might set up un- 
desirable stresses in the caisson and create dangerous conditions." 
In the actual process of tipping up the tower No. 4 template, it ro- 
tated, through unequal flooding of the buoyancy chambers, 17° in one 
direction, then 34° in the opposite direction about the horizontal axis 
before being brought under control. The design of the template 
did not include, per se, the stresses that might be exerted on the 
structure during the towing and tipping up operations. 
For illustration of the Kuss tip-up process there is reproduced 
(on p. 15) a schematic sketch of Texas tower No. 4 erection procedures. 
In the case of tower No. 4: 
The design contemplated that the separate foundation structure would be 
provided with a temporary construction platform which was limited in weight 
to 375 tons by the flotation and upending requirements of the horizontally con- 
structed foundation structure. The design planned that the temporary con- 
struction platform would be used for the operations of securing the founda- 
tion structure to the ocean bottom by means of steel pipe piles driven through 
skirts at the bottoms of the foundation legs and for concrete filling of the bottom 
portions of the foundation structure and the placing of concrete linings in the 
upper portions of the foundation legs.* 
Then the permanent platform would be floated into position be- 
tween the legs after their embedment and strengthening through 
concrete lining. 
2 Patent No. 2,586,966, dated Feb. 26, 1952, entitled ‘Deep Water Oil Well Drilling 
System.” Col. 1. 
18 Tbid. 
14 “Design and Construction Report,” p. 60. 
