A Practical Model for Nonlinear Seismic Response Analysis of Jacket Type Fixed Offshore Platforms

Offshore platforms in seismically active areas should be designed to survive severe earthquake excitations with no global structural failure. In seismic design of offshore platforms, it is often necessary to perform a dynamic analysis that accounts for nonlinear pile soil structures interaction effects. This paper summarizes an inexpensive and practical procedure compatible with readily available structural analysis software (ANSYS) for estimating the nonlinear lateral response of fixed offshore platforms resting on flexible piles subjected to seismic loading. In the proposed model, piles and jacket members are modeled using BNWF (Beam on Nonlinear Winkler Foundation) and FE (Finite Element) approaches respectively in an integrated model. In this paper, nonlinear seismic response analysis of an existing sample offshore platform has been performed and sensitivity of the results to the model main parameters is investigated.