Case study: Effects of wind loading on structural reliability

The effect of wind loading on structural reliability under storm overload is investigated for a number of minimum facility platforms on the North West Shelf. The long term distribution of environmental loading and consequently the structural reliability Is seen to be highly sensitive to wind loading for platforms in very shallow water, where the high return period wave heights are limited by breaking waves. The wind loading contribution to the total platform loading is further investigated for a typical minimum facility platform for a range of water depths, topsides weights and substructure effective diameters. Critical design conditions are thus highlighted for which a realistic assessment of structural reliability is highly dependent on the accuracy of the wind loading estimation.