Damage detection in jacket type offshore platforms using modal strain energy

Structural damage detection, damage localization and severity estimation of jacket platforms, based on calculating modal strain energy is presented in this paper. In the structure, damage often causes a loss of stiffness in some elements, so modal parameters; mode shapes and natural frequencies, in the damaged structure are different from the undamaged state. Geometrical location of damage is detected by computing modal strain energy change ratio (MSECR) for each structural element, which elements with higher MSECR are suspected to be damaged. For each suspected damaged element, by computing crossmodal strain energy (CMSE), damage severity as the stiffness reduction factor -that represented the ratios between the element stiffness changes to the undamaged element stiffness- is estimated. Numerical studies are demonstrated for a three dimensional, single bay, four stories frame of the existing jacket platform, based on the synthetic data that generated from finite element model. It is observed that this method can be used for damage detection of this kind of structures.