Reassessment of offshore platforms
- Mobil Research and Development Corporation, Dallas, TX (United States)
Data from Hurricane Andrew demonstrated that the systems and procedures in place for evacuating offshore workers and minimizing oil spills and environmental damage functioned as planned. While the vast majority of the platforms survived the storm with no damage, a few of the older platforms (installed prior to 1972) either collapsed or suffered severe damage. The collapsed platforms were designed with insufficient deck height to clear the storm waves. In recent years, the API RP 2A has introduced guidance for minimum air gap, minimum structures, platform inspection and platform reuse. These provisions, coupled with natural attribution of the older platforms, will significantly improve the performance of platforms in the future. The reliability of NDT techniques to detect major structural defects should be improved through continued research. While flooded member detection is used by several operators as a screening tool to detect major defects underwater, its reliability is not always good and further research is needed in this area. Another area of high priority research is related to the use of Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROV) to perform underwater inspection of structures. 51 refs., 7 figs.
- OSTI ID:
- 5466159
- Journal Information:
- Applied Mechanics Reviews; (United States), Vol. 46:5; ISSN 0003-6900
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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