Fluid Mechanics Logo

Abstract: Extreme fluid loads are one of the key concerns in the design and safety appraisal for offshore structures. If not appropriately designed against, the result of experiencing such loads is often catastrophic. However, predicting these loads is a particularly complex task. This is because large ocean surface waves, and by extension, extreme wave loads arise from random processes. The underlying distributions are unknown, and will vary with metocean conditions. Common design practices adopt simplistic procedures, where the most probable largest load (design load) is inferred in a deterministic manner. As a result, these design practices could be un-conservative. It is increasingly believed that a stochastic design approach should be adopted, where the design load is predicted by performing Monte-Carlo simulations. However, this is substantially resource demanding, with most of the resources wasted on simulating insignificantly small loads. We plan to propose an efficient and reliable design procedure, where design load is predicted by performing Monte-Carlo simulation with a focus on the extreme tail of the wave loads.