Strength Assessment of Jacket Offshore Wind Turbine Support Structure Accounting for Rupture

The objective of the present work is to carry out the strength assessment of jacket offshore wind turbine support structures subjected to progressive rupture. A defect existing in a structure made during the fabrication may turn into a small-scale rupture and because of the high-stress concentration and low-cycle fatigue load. Therefore, the ultimate load-carrying capacity of the support structure is analysed accounting for the progress of the rupture until the leg component experiences a full rupture along its circumference. The effect of the severity of the imperfection is also investigated through 3 case studies that are created by varying the amplitude of the waves. The moment-curvature relationship of the structure with respect to the studied cases is presented. Furthermore, the jacket support structures, at different water depths, are also analysed and discussed. Finally, some of the leg components are removed one by one to study the redundancy of the jacket support structure at 80-m water depth.