Effects of foundation conditions on failure modes of jacket type offshore platforms using incremental irregular wave dynamic analysis

Abstract

Quantitative assessment of environmental conditions and their loading effects is crucial for the optimal design of marine structures, especially offshore platforms subject to extreme environmental conditions. Wave load, particularly irregular wave load, significantly influences the structural response and ultimate strength of jacket-type offshore platforms (JTOPs) throughout their operational life. The dynamic nature of these irregular wave loads necessitates the use of advanced time history analysis to accurately capture their impact. This study aims to enhance the understanding of how foundation conditions impact failure modes and the structural response of JTOPs through an innovative incremental irregular wave dynamic analysis procedure. By focusing on an existing steel jacket-type platform in the Persian Gulf, this research evaluates six models with varying soil profiles and pile conditions to assess their effects on structural performance. The application of incremental irregular wave dynamic analysis provides a more precise and realistic modeling of wave impacts compared to traditional methods. The findings demonstrate that stronger soil profiles and improved pile conditions significantly enhance structural integrity, particularly under extreme loading conditions. Specifically, optimizing pile configurations is critical for enabling the structure to endure larger waves, whereas variations in the yield stress of steel material have a lesser impact on the platform's response. Additionally, the dynamic results are compared with pushover analysis, which serves as a benchmark to evaluate the accuracy and effectiveness of the pushover analysis compared to incremental irregular wave analysis method used in this study.