Analyzing the safety of removal sequences for piles of an offshore jacket platform

An inevitable consequence of the development of the offshore petroleum industry is the eventual obsolescence of large offshore structures. Proper methods for removal of decommissioned offshore platforms are becoming an important topic that the oil and gas industry must pay increasing attention to. While removing sections from a decommissioned jacket platform, the stability of the remaining parts is critical The jacket danger indices D ~ and Ds defined in this paper are very useful for analyzing the safety of any procedure planned for disassembling a jacket platform. The safest piles cutting sequence can be determined easily by comparing every column of Do and Ds or simply analyzing the figures of every row ofD o and D,.

Reliability-Based Design for Jacket Platform Under Extreme Loads

In this paper, reliability analysis for the offshore jacket platform with the interaction of structure- pile- soil under extreme environmental loads is carried out. The inherent uncertainties of the environmental load, foundation soil, platform itself, and calculating models are evaluated. The action of extreme loads on the offshore platform is modeled as a function of extreme wave height. The system capacity of the whole platform is determined by nonlinear pushover analysis, and the relevant probability property is obtained by the simulation method. The reliability model for the whole jacket platform is described as the relationship between the load and resistance based on the offshore design codes. The reliability of whole platform is calculated by the analytical method and the importance sampling method on the basis of a case study for a tripod jacket platform.

Calibration of LRFD Format for Steel Jacket Offshore Platforms in China Offshore Area(1) :Statistical Parameters of Loads and Resistances

The statistical characteristics and parameters of loads and resistances are systematically studied for the development of probabilistic limit state design method for steel jacket offshore platforms in the China offshore area. The mean value, standard variance and distribution pattern of resistances and loads in different base perieds are presented. The statistical parameters of structural member resistance, self-weight, deck live load, and environmental loads such as wind, wave, current and ice, which are drawn on a large amount of observatian data of offshore environmental factors, and the design data of platforms in China Bohai Sea form the data set, providing a necessary basis for the calibration of load and resistance factors to realize the reliability-based design of jacket platform structures.

Curvature of Flexibility Matrix for Damage Identification in Legs of Jacket Platforms

In this paper a new nondestructive damage identification method is introduced. The method based on flexibility matrix can be used to detect and locate structm＇al damage and evaluate the severity of damage in legs of jacket platforms by modal parameters of a structure. With the modal data for only the few lower modes in both the intact and damaged states, the one-dimensional and two-dimensional distributed curvatures can be used to analyze damage location and the severity. Instead of directly comparing the curvatures before and ＇after damage, the method here uses modal parameters only in the damaged structure to detect the damage and it consists of three parts. First, ilexibility matrix is obtained by use of the absolute maximum in each column. Second, because the legs of jacket platforms are the pipe-like structure, the circumferential flexibility curvature matrix is obtained by use of the circular curvature. At last, equivalent curvature ratio is defined and the curve meaning equivalent curvature ratio and the severity of damage relationship for one element is given through the data of damage severity from ten percent to ninety percent by numerical simulation. Many existing damage detection methods need two steps, locate the damage firstly and evaluate the severity of the damage. However, the method present- ed! in this paper can locate and then evaluate the severity of damage at the same time. The numerical analysis results in- dicate that the present method is effective, useful and only need the first and the second mode data of the structure.

System Reliability Analysis of an Offshore Jacket Platform

This study investigates strategies for solving the system reliability of large three-dimensional jacket structures.These structural systems normally fail as a result of a series of different components failures.The failure characteristics are investigated under various environmental conditions and direction combinations.Theβ-unzipping technique is adopted to determine critical failure components,and the entire system is simplified as a series-parallel system to approximately evaluate the structural system reliability.However,this approach needs excessive computational effort for searching failure components and failure paths.Based on a trained artificial neural network(ANN),which can be used to approximate the implicit limit-state function of a complicated structure,a new alternative procedure is proposed to improve the efficiency of the system reliability analysis method.The failure probability is calculated through Monte Carlo simulation(MCS)with Latin hypercube sampling(LHS).The features and applicability of the above procedure are discussed and compared using an example jacket platform located in Chengdao Oilfield,Bohai Sea,China.This study provides a reference for the evaluation of the system reliability of jacket structures.

Aseismic Reliability Analysis Approach for Offshore Jacket Platform Structures

By means of nonlinear pushover collapse analysis approach, the aseismic reliability analyses of two offshore jacket platforms in the Bohai Gulf in China are studied according to their ocean location and environmental loadings there. On the basis of those analyses, an aseismic reliability analysis approach is presented. The results show that the aseismic reliability of those platforms is high. Also it is proved that this aseismic reliability analysis approach is simple, practical and reliable.

Adaptive Predictive Inverse Control of Offshore Jacket Platform Based on Rough Neural Network

The offshore jacket platform is a complex and time-varying nonlinear system, which can be excited of harmful vibration by external loads. It is difficult to obtain an ideal control performance for passive control methods or traditional active control methods based on accurate mathematic model. In this paper, an adaptive inverse control method is proposed on the basis of novel rough neural networks （RNN） to control the harmful vibration of the offshore jacket platform, and the offshore jacket platform model is established by dynamic stiffness matrix （DSM） method. Benefited from the nonlinear processing ability of the neural networks and data interpretation ability of the rough set theory, RNN is utilized to identify the predictive inverse model of the offshore jacket platform system. Then the identified model is used as the adaptive predictive inverse controller to control the harmful vibration caused by wave and wind loads, and to deal with the delay problem caused by signal transmission in the control process. The numerical results show that the constructed novel RNN has advantages such as clear structure, fast training speed and strong error-tolerance ability, and the proposed method based on RNN can effectively control the harmful vibration of the offshore jacket platform.

Estimating Design Loads with Environmental Contour Approach Using Copulas for an Offshore Jacket Platform

Jacket-type offshore platforms are widely used for oil, gas field, and energy development in shallow water. The design of a jacket structure is highly dependent on target environmental variables. This study focuses on a strategy to estimate design loads for offshore jacket structures based on an environmental contour approach. In addition to the popular conditional distribution model, various classes of bivariate copulas are adopted to construct joint distributions of environmental variables. Analytical formulations of environmental contours based on various models are presented and discussed in this study. The design loads are examined by dynamic response analysis of jacket platform. Results suggest that the conditional model is not recommended for use in estimating design loads in sampling locations due to poor fitting results. Independent copula produces conservative design loads and the extreme response obtained using the conditional model are smaller than those determined by copulas. The suitability of a model for contour construction varies with the origin of wave data. This study provides a reference for the design load estimation of jacket structures and offers an alternative procedure to determine the design criteria for offshore structures.

Parametric Study on the Effects of Pile Inclination Angle on the Response of Batter Piles in Offshore Jacket Platforms

Offshore jacket-type platforms are attached to the seabed by long batter piles. In this paper, results from a finite element analysis, verified against experimental data, are used to study the effect of the pile＇s inclination angle, and its interaction with the geometrical properties of the pile and the geotechnical characteristics of the surrounding soil on the behavior of the inclined piles supporting the jacket platforms. Results show that the inclination angle is one of the main parameters affecting the behavior of an offshore pile. We investigated the effect of the inclination angle on the maximum von Mises stress, maximum von Mises elastic strain, maximum displacement vector sum, maximum displacement in the horizontal direction, and maximum displacement in the vertical direction. Results indicate that the pile＇s operationally optimal degree of inclination is approximately 5°. By exceeding this value, the instability in the surrounding soil under applied loads grows extensively in all the geotechnical properties considered. Cohesive soils tend to display poorer results compared to grained soils.

Optimum Design of Structure Shape for Offshore Jacket Platforms

With the introduction of the design variables of nodal coordinates, which reflect the embedded depth of the pile and the jacket bed height, a shape optimum design model for offshore jacket platforms is established. A sequential two-level optimum algorithm is developed based on the design variable gradation. On the basis of the finite element method, the sensitivity of the objective function and nodal displacement is analyzed. As an example, the BZ281 oil storage offshore platform, which ties in the Bohai oil field, is designed with the shape optimum model. The results are compared with the cross-section optimum design. The tendency of design variables and its reasons in the two methods are analyzed. In the shape optimum design, the value of objective function is obviously smaller than that of the initial design and the cross-section optimum design. Therefore, the advantage of structure shape optimum design for jacket platforms is remarkable.

Finite Element Simplified Fatigue Analysis Method for a Non-tubular Joint of an Offshore Jacket Platform

This paper proposes the finite element simplified fatigue analysis method for fatigue evaluation of the composite non-tubular joint structure of an offshore jacket subjected to wave loads. The skirt pile sleeve of the offshore jacket, which had been in service, was taken as an example of the non-tubular joint structure. SACS software was used for global analysis of multi-directional wave loads for the jacket platform, and ALGOR software was used to build a finite element model, perform finite element analysis, post-process stress results for acquiring the stress range, and perform fatigue evaluation. The analysis results indicate that the extreme stress range is within the allowable stress range and meets the requirements of DNV code. That means the simplified fatigue analysis method is effective and can be used in fatigue design for the non-tubular joint structure of an offshore jacket.

Research on technology of automatic welding machine and procedure for pile pipes of offshore jacket platform

Because of the high requirement of quality,vile working environment and great difficulty of automatic welding,MMAW is usually adopted for the welding of the platform jacket and the pile pipe.Its low efficiency and hard working is one of the choke points for construction progress. In this article,an up-to-date technology for platform pile pipe welding was introduced. Cored with FCW-S and combined with the characters and requirements of platform construction,the special automatic horizontal welding equipment and process were developed. Further more,the offshore application were introduced too.

Reliability-Based Load and Resistance Factors Design for Offshore Jacket Platforms in the Bohai Bay:Calibration on Target Reliability Index

The target reliability index has been effectively used as the best solution to deal with the relationship between the structural safety and the optimal economy in any structural design. However, the target reliability index for offshore jacket platforms based on different sea areas in China has never been calibrated. This paper presents an approach for its calibration, and suggests many kinds of associated load cases. The uncertainties of loads and structural resistance are mainly in- vestigated. The target reliability index for structural components, tubular joints and piles of offshore jacket plaffortns are discussed respectively in detail. Finally, through the calibrated results from the offshore jacket platforms of QK18-1, JZ20-2, SZ36-1 and BZ28-1 in the Bohai Bay, it is proposed to adopt 2.8 as the target reliability index of offshore jacket platforms in the Bohai Bay for a 25-year design period. The results provide significant reference for the design of offshore jacket platforms.

Multi-Objective Fuzzy Optimum Design Based on Reliability for Offshore Jacket Platforms

In consideration of the fuzzy constraint boundary and through analysis of structural reliability, a model of structural fuzzy optimum design is established based on reliability for offshore jacket platforms. According to the characteristics of offshore jacket platforms, the tolerance coefficient of the constraint boundary is determined with the fuzzy optimization method. The optimum level cut set lambda*, which is the intersection of the fuzzy constraint set and fuzzy objective set, is determined with the bound search method, and then the fuzzy optimum solution to the fuzzy optimization problem is obtained. The central offshore platform SZ36-1 is designed with the fuzzy optimum model based on reliability; the results are compared with those from deterministic optimum design and fuzzy optimum design. The tendency of design variables in the above three methods and its reasons are analyzed. The results of an example show that the fuzzy optimum design based on reliability is stable and reliable.

Optimum Design of Jacket Platforms Considering Structure-Pile-Soil Interaction

This paper proposes an optimum design model for the offshore jacket platform considering multidesign criteria, multi-design constraints and the structure-pile-soil interaction, and gives an optimum design procedure in which the proposed optimum design model is used together with structural analysis software SAP91 and optimum algorithm software OPB1. The Chengbei (#)11 offshore platform, which lies in the Shengli oilfield, is designed by use of the above optimum design model. The results show that the optimum design model is stable, and it depends on neither the optimization algorithm nor initial values of design variables. All values of the objective function converge to the same minimum value, and the speed of convergence is high, showing that the proposed optimum design model is reasonable.

Reliability-Based Full-Life Cycle Optimum Design of Offshore Jacket Platform

Based on the consideration of operation environment and structural property, an optimum design model of offshore jacket platform is developed in this paper, namely, the reliability-based full-life cycle optimum design model. In this model, the time-dependent reliability assessment method for structural members is established by combination of the decrease of sectional size and performance deterioration of material. The initial investment, maintenance cost and failure loss cost are assembled into the model. The total cost of the platform structure system in its full service period is chosen as the objective function, and the initial reliabilities of the layer elements partitioned in advance are taken as the design variables. Different models are obtained, depending on whether the system reliability constraint is considered or not. This optimum design model can result in the lowest full-life cost and the optimal initial layer reliability of an offshore jacket platform in the design of marine structures. The feasibility of this model is illustrated with an actual jacket platform in the Liaodong Gulf as an example.

Calibration of LRFD Format for Steel Jacket OffshorePlatform in China Offshore Area(2): Load, Resistance and Load Combination Factors

Adopting the load and resistance factor design format, the design method for steel jaeket platform structures is developed. Firstly, the limit state equations and design format for steel jacket platform structures are introduced. Then, the ratio of live load effect to dead load effect is estimated. The target reliabilities for design of offshore structures in China offshore area are calibrated by past practice in API RP2A-WSD code. The load and resistance factors are optimized by minimizing the difference within the target reliability and the resulting reliability over the range of load effect ratios. Considering the concurrence of different loads, load combination factors are obtained through an optimization process, and the relation between the load combination factor and load correlation coefficient is established. Finally, the design formulae for steel jacket structures in China offshore area are recommended.

A Robust Damage Detection Method Developed for Offshore Jacket Platforms Using Modified Artificial Immune System Algorithm

Steel jacket-type platforms are the common kind of the offshore structures and health monitoring is an important issue in their safety assessment. In the present study, a new damage detection method is adopted for this kind of structures and inspected experimentally by use of a laboratory model. The method is investigated for developing the robust damage detection technique which is less sensitive to both measurement and analytical model uncertainties. For this purpose, incorporation of the artificial immune system with weighted attributes （AISWA） method into finite element （FE） model updating is proposed and compared with other methods for exploring its effectiveness in damage identification. Based on mimicking immune recognition, noise simulation and attributes weighting, the method offers important advantages and has high success rates. Therefore, it is proposed as a suitable method for the detection of the failures in the large civil engineering structures with complicated structural geometry, such as the considered case study.

Inelastic Nonlinear Pushover Analysis of Fixed Jacket-Type Offshore Platform with Different Bracing Systems Considering Soil-Structure Interaction

In this study, inelastic nonlinear pushover analysis is performed on a 3-D model of a jacket-type offshore platform for the North Sea conditions. The structure＇ is modelled, analyzed and designed using finite element software SACS （structural analysis computer system）. The behavior of jackets with different bracing systems under pushover analysis is examined. Further, by varying the leg batter values of the platform, weight optimization is carried-out. Soil-structure interaction effect is considered in the analyses and the results are compared with the hypothetical fixed-support end condition. Static and dynamic pushover analyses are performed by using wave and seismic loads respectively. From the analyses, it is found that the optimum leg batter varies between 15 to 16 and 2% of weight saving is achieved. Moreover, it has been observed that the type of bracing does not play a major role in the seismic design of jacket platform considering the soil-structure interaction.

A new bracing system for improvement of seismic performance of steel jacket type offshore platforms with float-over-deck

In this paper, the seismic response of a newly designed steel jacket offshore platform with a float over deck （FOD） system in the Persian Gulf was investigated through incremental dynamic analysis. Comparison of incremental dynamic analysis results for both directions of the platform shows that the lateral strength of the platform in the float over direction is less than its lateral strength in other direction. Dynamic characteristics measurement of a scale model of platform was also performed using forced vibration tests. From experimental measurement of the scaled model, it was observed that dynamic characteristic of the platform is different in the float over direction compared to the other direction. Therefore, a new offshore installed bracing system for the float over direction was proposed for improvement of seismic performance of this type of platform. Finally, the structure with the modified system was assessed using the probabilistic seismic assessment method as well as experimental measurement of its dynamic characteristics. It was observed that the proposed offshore installed bracing system improves the performance of platforms subjected to strong ground motion.