Techno Press
Techno Press

Structural Engineering and Mechanics
  Volume 31, Number 1, January10 2009 , pages 11-24
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12989/sem.2009.31.1.011
 


Minimum life-cycle cost design of ice-resistant offshore platforms
Gang Li, Da-yong Zhang and Qian-jin Yue

 
Abstract
    In China, the oil and natural gas resources of Bohai Bay are mainly marginal oil fields. It is necessary to build both ice-resistant and economical offshore platforms. However, risk is involved in the
design, construction, utilization, maintenance of offshore platforms as uncertain events may occur within the life-cycle of a platform under the extreme ice load. In this study, the optimum design model of the expected life-cycle cost for ice-resistant platforms based on cost-effectiveness criterion is proposed. Multiple performance demands of the structure, facilities and crew members, associated with the failure assessment criteria and evaluation functions of costs of construction, consequences of structural failure modes including damage, revenue loss, death and injury as well as discounting cost over time are considered. An efficient approximate method of the global reliability analysis for the offshore platforms is provided, which converts the implicit nonlinear performance function in the conventional reliability analysis to linear explicit one. The proposed life-cycle optimum design formula are applied to a typical ice-resistant platform in Bohai Bay, and the results demonstrate that the life-cycle cost-effective optimum design model is more rational compared to the conventional design.
 
Key Words
    life-cycle cost; cost-effective design; global reliability; optimal design; offshore platform; ice load.
 
Address
Gang Li, Da-yong Zhang and Qian-jin Yue: State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis of Industrial Equipment, Dalian University of Tech, Dalian, 116023, China
 

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