Response-based analysis for Tension Leg Platform

Abstract

The typical industry practice for Tension Leg Platform (TLP) design focuses on a conventional short-term design recipe, which assumes that an N-year design environment leads to an N-year response. In the response-based design method, the TLP is designed to withstand N-year responses rather than respond to N-year environmental conditions. In this paper, we present an overview and a general procedure for the response-based design method and use a case study to compare the critical TLP responses between the two methods. The results of our comparison show that the conventional short-term design method often contains an element of conservatism and that the response-based design method can reduce the design conditions and thereby achieve cost savings.