• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.453-460
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• 2017

In the offshore industry, helicopters are mainly used for transportation of goods or operating personnel between offshore sites and onshore facilities. A helideck is a structure that is required for landing and take-off of helicopters on the offshore structure. There are several shapes of helidecks depending on the type of offshore structures or installation location. Among them, cantilever-type helidecks usually provide more space on the topside of offshore structures and it is safer against potential accidents like fire or explosion. In this paper, the cantilever-type helideck is selected for the research object and topology design optimization is applied for lightweight design of the helideck. A finite element model is then created from the optimal layout of truss structures of the helideck, and structural analysis is performed under various landing conditions and wind loads. Based on the analysis results, the detailed section dimensions of structural members are determined so that the maximum stress at each structure member does not exceed the allowable stress of the structural material. Also, the final optimal design shows significant decrease in the total weight of the helideck.