The assessment of impact damage caused by dropped objects on floating offshore structures

Abstract

Offshore facilities are exposed to the risk of accidental damages caused by fire, explosion, dropped objects, extreme environmental events and vessel collision poses a big threat to the safety and operation. During any lifting work, either from a supply vessel to the installation or from within the installation or plant itself, there is a potential danger when objects are being lifted for a dropped object accident to take place. This paper introduces extensive dropped object analyses applied in the design of Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO) offshore units, where non-linear finite element analyses are performed using an explicit LS-DYNA tool. In the structural evaluation, the hull parts such as infill deck, galley, and main lay-down located on poop deck, and cargo deck are taken into account. The dropped objects study is to find out what happens to the FPSO hull structure if the heavy items are dropped. The drop object impact analyses show that even though some structural members were permanently deformed by drop loads, however, there was no failure taken place in accordance with the plastic strain criteria as per NORSOK Code. It is discovered that the pillars supporting the main lay-down area have not been suffered from buckling failure through examined reaction forces. Further, the impact resistance of a deck depends on the plate thickness and the size and spacing of the supporting stringers.