Study the effect of blast load on the steel offshore platforms

Abstract

The most vital and productive facilities at the present time are more exposed to blasting, especially offshore oil exporting platforms. The current paper studies the effect of a blast on a fixed offshore steel platform with dimensions of (20 × 20) meters, a height of 30 m, and a water level 10 m below the platform deck. ABAQUS finite element software was used to solve and analyze the problem appropriately. To find out the most dangerous blasting on the platform at this moment, two different locations of blasting were taken, the first on the platform deck and the other near the platform on the surface of the water. The amount of the blasting material TNT was also increased to find out its effect on the platform. The study proved that it is very necessary to design offshore platforms taking into account the blast loads and predicting the critical condition of the blasting. In this study, the location of the blast on the water surface and near the platform was the most dangerous and critical on the response of the platform and may have led to the collapse. Also, the near elements from the blasting source, the blast has less effect. Also, the steel platform structure is characterized by being resistant to blast due to the lack of strong bumpers to repel the blast.