A method for determining fire accidental loads and its application to thermal response analysis for optimal design of offshore thin-walled structures

More than 70% of accidents that occur on offshore installations stem from hydrocarbon fire and explosion, and as they involve heat and blast effects, they are extremely hazardous with serious consequences in terms of human health, structural safety and the surrounding environment. To prevent further accidents, substantial effort has been directed towards the management of fire and explosion in the safety design of offshore installations. The aim of this paper is to present a risk-based methodology procedure to help determine the fire accidental design load of an offshore installation (AL Living Quarter) in association with the thermal response characteristics for structural optimisation. A probabilistic sampling approach with numerical fire simulations was taken to determine the fire accidental load. To determine the optimisation of the thin-walled structures of the living quarter, an A60 based on the results of thermal response analyses was conducted and the temperature distribution calculated. The analysis results suggest incorporating both the design and safety planning aspects of offshore Living Quarter.