A Method for Analyzing System Reliability of Existing Jacket Platforms

Owing to the ageing of the existing structures worldwide and the lack of codes for the continued safety management of structures during their lifetime, it is very necessary to develop a tool to evaluate their system reliability over a time interval. In this paper, a method is proposed to analyze system reliability of existing jacket platforms. The influences of dint, crack and corrosion are considered. The mechanics characteristics of the existing jacket platforms to extreme loads are analyzed by use of the nonlinear mechanical analysis. The nonlinear interaction of pile-soil-structure is taken into consideration in the analysis. By use of FEM method and Monte Carlo simulation, the system reliability of the existing jacket platform can be obtained. The method has been illustrated through application to BZ28-1 three jacket platforms which have operated for sixteen years. Advantages of the proposed method for analyzing the system reliability of the existing jacket platform is also highlighted.