Fatigue reliability of mooring chains, including mean load and corrosion effects

A reliability formulation for mooring chain fatigue is developed, including the effects of mean load and degradation due to corrosion. They are included by starting from a S-N model with parameterized dependence to the mean load and a customized corrosion condition scale. The paper includes a thorough case study, based on a realistic case. A global sensitivity analysis is used to justify a reduction of the model dimension. A reliability analysis is then performed, and the effect on failure probability from variation of a range of parameters and model assumptions is studied. •Reliability formulation for fatigue of mooring chain segment.•Formulation accounts properly for mean load and corrosion effects.•Global sensitivity analysis is used to reduce the model dimension.•Thorough case study demonstrates impact of relevant parameters and properties.