Effects of Parameters on Non-Linear Seismic Analysis of Fixed Offshore Platform

Fixed offshore structures in seismically active zones are likely to have deformations large enough to exceed the elastic limits of materials under strong ground motions. Therefore, investigation of nonlinear response of offshore structures under dynamic loadings is very interesting to structural engineers. Nonlinear behavior of structures is highly related with the soil properties and soil behavior. The main purpose of this study is to investigate and show the methodology for inelastic dynamic analyses of fixed-offshore structures under the 10,000-year earthquake loadings. The investigation in this study includes the effect of soil radiation damping, soil-pile gapping, and soil degradation on fixed offshore structures. Additionally, the effect of the direction of earthquake is included in this study. An offshore structure model ‘Platform A’ is modeled in CAPFOS. 10,000-year earthquake events are considered and for this purpose, two different earthquakes are used: Hector Mine Earthquake (1999) and Landers Earthquake (1992). These ground motion records are scaled to have a resulting earthquake that has a return period of 10,000-year. CAPFOS software is used to complete time-history analyses with these earthquakes. Results indicate that: (i) Considering the soil radiation damping negligible is not correct, because without the radiation damping, the total damping ratio is estimated as % 3, while including radiation damping raises the ratio to % 4.5, (ii) soil-pile gapping and soil radiation damping generate adverse effects on analyses outcome, and (iii) using high values of soil degradation factors is not always conservative.