Skirt penetration in scour protection: laboratory and numerical analyses

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Skirts or shear keys are the most common elements used to provide sliding capacity to the foundation of post-piled offshore jackets prior to installation of the piles into the seabed. A protection system may be required to prevent scour, which can significantly affect the penetration of skirts and piles due to the grain size effect. Small-scale laboratory tests have been conducted to investigate the influence of grain size on the installation of skirts or the penetration of piles into two different granular materials using various plate thickness to grain size ratios ranging from 0.4 to 63. The results reveal that the plate penetration resistance increases with thicker skirts and higher soil friction angles as expected, but also as the grain size to plate thickness ratio is increased. To develop further knowledge of the effect of particle size on the penetration resistance of plates, discrete element modelling (DEM) is also utilized. Initially, triaxial tests were used to analyze the mechanical behaviour of the granular material modelled using DEM. Later, soil deposition of that granular material is simulated using periodic boundaries, and next, plate penetration is numerically modelled. Preliminary numerical results are presented, analyzed, and compared with the laboratory tests. 

5th International Symposium on Frontiers in Offshore Geotechnics (ISFOG2025)

11 - Suction installed foundations and anchors