Capacities and failure modes of suction bucket foundation with internal bulkheads

Abstract

Suction bucket foundations can be divided into four compartments by cruciform internal bulkheads, thereby yielding better capacity in certain conditions than those without internal bulkheads. As yet, no systematic study has been conducted regarding the effects of cruciform internal bulkheads on the capacities of suction bucket foundations. In this study, we established a large number of finite element models of suction bucket foundations with and without cruciform internal bulkheads and of solid embedded circular foundations. We found the uniaxial capacities and failure modes of suction bucket foundations with various depth ratios to remain basically unaffected by internal bulkheads in uniform clays. However, in inhomogeneous clay with high strength heterogeneity, we observed the uniaxial moment and horizontal capacities and corresponding failure modes of suction bucket foundations with a low depth ratio to be obviously affected by internal bulkheads. In this case, the uniaxial moment capacities, in particular, as well as the horizontal capacities of suction bucket foundations with cruciform internal bulkheads become obviously greater than those without internal bulkheads. Under combined loading, we found the failure envelopes of suction bucket foundations with and without cruciform internal bulkheads and of solid circular foundation to also be basically consistent in uniform clays. However, in inhomogeneous clay with high strength heterogeneity, cruciform internal bulkheads can obviously change the shapes of the failure envelopes of bucket foundations with a small depth ratio. We conclude that when the acting vertical load or foundation depth is relatively small, suction bucket foundations with cruciform internal bulkheads can be subjected to larger moment and horizontal loads in soft clays with high strength heterogeneity.