Fatigue Design Challenges of Transition Pieces from Decommissioned Platforms for Offshore Wind Energy

All structures are subjected to various loading conditions and combinations. For offshore structures, these loads include permanent loads, hydrostatic pressure, wave, current, and wind loads. Typically, sea environments in different geographical regions are characterized by the 100-year wave height, surface currents, and velocity speeds. The main problems associated with the commonly used, deterministic method is the fact that not all waves have the same period, and that the actual stochastic nature of the marine environment is not taken into account. Offshore steel structure fatigue design is done using the DNVGL-RP-0005:2016 standard which takes precedence over the DNV-RP-C203 standard (2012). Fatigue analysis is necessary for oil and gas producing offshore steel structures which were first constructed in the Gulf of Mexico North Sea (the 1930s) and later in the North Sea (1960s). Fatigue strength is commonly described by S-N curves which have been obtained by laboratory experiments. The rapid development of the Offshore wind industry has caused the exploration into deeper ocean areas and the adoption of new support structural concepts such as full lattice tower systems amongst others. The optimal design of offshore wind support structures including foundation, turbine towers, and transition piece components putting into consideration, economy, safety, and even the environment is a critical challenge. In this study, fatigue design challenges of transition pieces from decommissioned platforms for offshore wind energy are proposed to be discussed. The fatigue resistance of the material and structural components under uniaxial and multiaxial loading is introduced with the new fatigue design rules whilst considering the combination of global and local modeling using finite element analysis software programs.