Risk-Adjusted Underwater Inspection Intervals for Steel Piled Jackets

Inspection intervals have been long established in some jurisdictions around the world based on an assessment of acceptable risk from experience, judgment, and observations of past damage. In areas that do not have the benefit of decades of experience, the designated inspection intervals may be inheriting intervals from another region of the world, and in doing so, potentially subscribing to inspection interval frequencies that assume less or more risk than has been deemed acceptable in other areas of the world. This study investigates two prototype steel piled jacket platforms subjected to metocean conditions present in several areas of offshore development around the world, with the objective to investigate the relative fatigue performance of the prototype structures in these varied environments. The relative performance of these various locations may lend insight into the implementation of risk-consistent inspection intervals for structural integrity maintenance programs.