In the tubular frames with simple joints, the joints may show considerable local flexibility, which causes excessive deformation and affects internal force distributions. It is useful and important to study turbular joint flexibility as well as the effect of joint local flexibility on the global behavior of tubular structure for the design and building of offshore platforms. A new method for computing the stiffness coefficients of simple tubular joints is developed in this paper based on two previous computing models. According to this method, the local flexibility of T, Y, TY tubular joints are computed. This method has merits of clear physical sense, simplicity of computations and less c. p. u. time. The effect of flexibility of tubular joints on the global behavior of framed tubular structures is investigated by comparing the computed results of tubular structures with flexible tubular joints with those with rigid connections. The comparison shows that the consideration of local flexibility of tubular joints and its effect on the stress analysis of offshore structures has its practical significance. In the tubular frames with simple joints, the joints may show considerable local flexibility, which causes excessive deformation and affects internal force distributions. It is useful and important to study turbular joint flexibility as well as the effect of joint local flexibility on the global behavior of tubular structure for the design and building of offshore platforms. A new method for computing the stiffness coefficients of simple tubular joints is developed in this paper based on two previous computing models. According to this method, the local flexibility of T, Y, TY tubular joints are computed. This method has merits of clear physical sense, simplicity of computations and less cpu time. The effect of flexibility of tubular joints on the global behavior of framed tubular structures is investigated by comparing the computed results of tubular structures with flexible tubular joints with those with rigid connections. The comparison shows that the consideration of local fle xibility of tubular joints and its effect on the stress analysis of offshore structures has its practical significance.