Damage detection of offshore platforms using acoustic emission analysis

This paper aims to detect the structure damage in KT type jacket offshore platforms using acoustic emission analysis. Experimental investigation has been implemented to analyze the transmission characteristics, attenuation law, and source localization of the acoustic emission signals. The range of energy attenuation coefficient α and the signal amplitude attenuation law were obtained from experimental data. Hence, the layout of acoustic emission sensors was optimized based on the energy attenuation to achieve online damage monitoring for KT-jacket platforms. In order to validate the performance of the optimized sensor layout, another experimental test was conducted on the designed KT-jacket offshore platform to locate the acoustic emission sources. The test results demonstrate that a positioning error of 8 mm or below can be obtained using the optimized sensor layout, and the number of sensors can be reduced by 80% compared with that of the theoretical layout. As a result, the optimized sensor layout enables efficient and effective damage detection for KT-jacket offshore platforms.