The Adoption of AISC 360 for Offshore Structural Design Practices

The offshore design standards for U.S. practices refer to AISC specifications when designing structural components with nontubular shapes. The widely used API RP-2A WSD standard (API, 2014) asks designers to use the 1989 AISC Specification. The newly published API RP-2A LRFD and RP-2TOP ask designers to use the 2010 AISC Specification. Although the 2010 AISC Specification has been partially adopted by API, the current offshore practice is still primarily dominated by the 1989 AISC Specification. The key issue hampering the offshore community’s full adoption of the 2010 AISC Specification is the relative ease of accounting for second-order effects in the 1989 AISC Specification. In 2019, API formed a Task Group dedicated to studying this issue, with the main findings summarized in this paper. By illustrating the key code check process in two examples with an easy-to-understand format, this paper aims to assist offshore structural engineers to better understand the latest AISC specification. The authors also hope that this paper will serve as a communication path between the offshore structural community and AISC for current and future standards’ adoption and harmonization.