Quick assessment of the punching resistance of an offshore wind turbine jacket impacted by a ship

This paper presents a new methodology developed to compute the energy dissipated by plastic deformation of offshore wind turbine jacket punched legs in a ship collision event. Punching may occur on both impacted and rear legs at the connection with compressed braces. Using semi-analytical expressions derived to assess the resistant force and the deformation energy of a punched leg and the internal axial force in each brace, the connections where punching is initiated are identified. Then, the punching deformation at each connection is computed and linked to the ship penetration through the jacket. The corresponding resistant force and dissipated energy is finally assessed and transmitted to the impact point. This methodology is successfully validated by comparison with nonlinear finite element simulations.