Retracted: Nonlinear Analysis of Offshore Jacket Structures including Ductility of Welded Tubular Connections

Performance-based design requires consideration of environmental conditions at recurrence periods well beyond those of current practice, when structural damage is expected and connections are likely to behave inelastically. Performance-based design considers both the occurrence and consequence of structural damage caused by extreme conditions and could improve the performance of offshore structures. This paper assesses the post-elastic behavior and ductility of common connection details for offshore jacket structures based on a survey of experiments and empirical joint models and on nonlinear finite element analyses. The assessment includes common connection detailsunder tension, compression, and bending. The prediction of the inelastic load-deformation response, based on MSL and API, two empirical joint models in the structural analysis program, USFOS, is comparedto experiments. As an illustrative example to demonstrate the performance assessment capabilities of this approach, a pushover analysisis carried out for anoffshore jacket structure supporting a wind turbine andsubjected to extremewind and wave loading.