Model refinement for offshore platforms: Experimental study

Offshore jacket platforms are widely used in offshore oil and gas exploitation. Finite element models of such structures need to have many degrees of freedom (DOFs) to represent the geometrical detail of complex structures, thereby leading to incompatibility in the number of DOFs of experimental models. To bring them both to the same order while ensuring that the essential eigen- properties of the refined model match those of experimental models, an extended model refinement procedure is presented in this paper. Vibration testing of an offshore jacket platform model is performed to validate the applicability of the proposed approach. A full-order finite element model of the platform is established and then tuned to meet the measured modal properties identified from the acceleration signals. Both model reduction and modal expansion methods are investigated, as well as various scenarios of sensor arrangements. Upon completion of the refinement, the updated jacket platform model matches the natural frequencies of the measured model well.