Hurricanes

The project examined the Loss of MODU Station-keeping in the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricane Ivan, September 2004, comparing those findings with that of recent Hurricanes Andrew (1992) and Lili (2002), and assessed the current mooring standards and criteria to prevent similar failures.

Objectives:

The project's objectives are summarized below:

This project will investigate the major classes of pipeline failure that resulted to GOM OCS facilities by Hurricane Lili in the Fall of 2002. The project will have four objectives: Investigate pipeline failures resulting from Hurricane Lili, including flowlines, major trunk lines and platform risers from both fixed and floating production facilities;
Compare and contrast these failures with those reported from Hurricane Andrew;
Make specific recommendations for changes in design or operations guidelines that might prevent or mitigate such failures in the future.

This project collected and assessed information on the performance of deepwater production facilities that were impacted by Hurricane Lili (2002). This study formed the basis for developing recommendations for improvement in design and operation of installations such as:

vortex-induced vibration of risers, loss of air gap with wave loading on decks, tension leg platform TLP performance, and Spar performance measurements.

Project will study failures of offshore drilling rigs, MODUs, Jackup Rigs associated with the passage of Hurricane Lili in the autumn of 2002. Develop any recommendations updates on criteria, review data from the Hurricane Andrew timeframe and the make recommendations to SNAME RP for possible future mitigation action.

This study was to develop a description of the evolution and distribution of the surface wind field, wave, salinity, sea surface temperature and current field in the northern GOM during the approach and passage of Hurricane Lili in 2002. The hindcast utilized all available public domain meteorological and oceanographic measured data, and Oceanweather's most accurate cyclone wind and wave hindcast methods. Hindcast results are validated against available measured data and an assessment of the accuracy of the hindcast provided with the results.

This project updates the API-RP-2A section using Hurricane Lili data to validate and calibrate Hurricane Andrew's JIP results. Hurricane Lili did much damage to platforms, including the complete loss of some of the units. The general project objectives were to:

This is a Joint Industry Project (JIP). Phase I was a calibration task to study the effects of Hurricane Andrew on platforms (i.e. survived, damaged, or failed). The outcomes were used to update current practices for assessing the ability of in-place platforms to withstand hurricanes. This calibration approach became part of API's RP 2A standard for assessing existing offshore platforms.

The objective was to conduct parametric studies of the dynamic response of reduced degrees of freedom nonlinear systems and determine how the results from simplified nonlinear capacity analysis relate to the results from complex time-domain analysis of the performance of platforms in extreme condition storms. Observed platform performance during recent hurricanes (e.g. Andrew, Camille, Betsy, Hilda) were used to verify the analysis. Engineering guidelines were developed to define dynamic nonlinear loading-capacity effects on the overall performance characteristics of platforms.

This is a Joint Industry Project (JIP) to inspect and analyze three Chevron platforms in South Timbalier field. Two survived Hurricane Andrew, the other toppled during the hurricane. The intent is to compare analytical predictions with actual field performance, with particular emphasis on individual member and platform system failure. This assessment will be used in developing guidelines to be incorporated in the American Petroleum Institute (API) RP2A.

Approximately 100 caisson structures were tilted during Hurricane Andrew. The objective of this study is to develop an acceptance criteria for those tilted structures and to develop guidelines for straightening those structures which did not meet the criteria.