The paper deals with the comparative study of design optimization based on various approximation techniques in strength design of riser support structure installed on floating production storage and offloading unit(FPSO) using offshore operation loading conditions. The design optimization problem is formulated such that structural member sizing variables are determined by minimizing the weight of riser support structure subject to the constraints of structural strength in terms of loading conditions. The approximation techniques used in the comparative study are response surface method based sequential approximate optimization(RBSAO), Kriging based sequential approximate optimization(KBSAO), and the enhanced moving least squares method(MLSM) based approximate optimization such as CF(constraint feasible)-MLSM and Post-MLSM. Commercial process integration and design optimization(PIDO) tools are employed for the applications of RBSAO and KBSAO. The enhanced MLSM based approximate optimization techniques are newly developed to ensure the constraint feasibility. In the context of numerical performances such as design solution and computational cost, the solution results from approximate techniques based design optimization are compared to actual non-approximate design optimization.