A Risk-Informed Approach to Performance Assurance - Structural Integrity of Offshore Wind Turbines - page 67

By the early 1960s, there were several hundred platforms in the GOM.
No major storms affected areas with large numbers of offshore structures
until the mid-1960s. The first significant platform failures under storm
conditions came in 1964, when Hurricane Hilda destroyed 13 platforms
and damaged five others beyond repair (MMS 2004). The following year,
Hurricane Betsy destroyed eight platforms (MMS 2004). The storms
emphasized the need for developing more consistent design approaches
and for gathering better data on wind speeds, wave heights, and soil char-
acteristics for use in the design process. Hurricane Camille in 1969 was
another damaging storm, with measured waves far higher than those pre-
dicted by the use of existing data (MMS 2004; Berek 2010).
In 1966, the American Petroleum Institute (API) created the Commit-
tee on Standardization of Offshore Structures (Berman et al. 1990), and
the Ocean Data Gathering Program was set up in 1968 (Ward 1974). These
steps were among the first by the industry as a whole to standardize the
design of offshore platform structures in the GOM, and they led to the first
API design standard for fixed jacket structures, Recommended Practice 2A
(RP 2A), in 1969 (Berek 2010). This standard did not specify a design
return period for storm conditions. A design wave with a 100-year
return period was first specified in the 7th edition of API RP 2A in 1976
(Berek 2010). The 9th edition of RP 2A (which included, among other
improvements, more robust joint design guidance) was issued in 1978,
and platforms designed to this or later editions are considered by the
industry to be “modern.” The superiority of such platforms was demon-
strated in the aftermath of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, when 75 structures
were destroyed, the majority of which were older platforms designed
with 25-year return periods and lower decks (Berek 2010; Energo
Engineering 2010).
Though storms and their damage were not the only drivers for changes
to design guides and industry practice, they have had a significant effect.
Figure 4-1 shows a timeline of GOM oil and gas development from its
beginnings to the present along with significant storms and subsequent
standards developments and changes, as well as changes in industry prac-
tice and regulations (Puskar et al. 2006). The storms of the late 1960s led
directly to the establishment of the RP 2A standard and its subsequent
improvement through the 1970s. Hurricane Andrew led directly to the