| The primary focus of this study has ben on a methodology that can be used by regulatory bodies, owners, and operators to assess the safety of the offshore platforms located in the Gulf of Mexico.; Regulatory bodies, such as the Minerals Management Service (MMS) established in the United States, have a role to play to ensure that the structures operating in the offshore waters are safe to life, environment, property and loss of production. However, they do not have a methodology to make such routine assessments for the more than 4,500 platforms operating in the Gulf of Mexico.; In this study, a 4-cycle screening methodology has been developed for making routine assessments of the safety of platforms against storm wave loads. Simplified techniques have been developed for platform capacity evaluation which will be of special importance for identification of potentially critical platforms. Judgements on their safety can be made based on a probabilistic approach, which utilizes the nominal estimates and the uncertainties in the load, strength, and consequences of the failure of a platform.; Although the emphasis of this research is on safety assessment of the Gulf of Mexico platforms against the storm wave loads, the principles and theoretical background developed will be of use for assessment of the offshore structures in other areas and against other load sources.; The ideas developed in this study could also be utilized in the re-qualification and rehabilitation of other civil engineering structures. In the State of California, CALTRANS, a government body, needs a process to evaluate the safety of more than 9,000 existing bridges. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)... |
