Effect of plate slope and water jetting on the penetration depth of a jack-up spud-can for surficial sands

Abstract

The spudcan requires the suitable design considering the soil, platform, and environmental conditions. Its shape needs to be designed to secure sufficient reaction of soil so that it can prevent overturning accidents. Its shape also has to minimize the installation and extraction time. Even in the same soil condition, the reaction of soil may be different depending on the shape of spud can, mainly the slope of top and bottom plates. Therefore, in this study, the relation between the slope of plates and the reaction of soil with and without water jetting is analyzed to better understand their interactions and correlations. For the investigation, a wind turbine installation jack-up rig (WTIJ) is selected as the target platform and the Gulf of Mexico is considered as the target site. A multi layered (sand overlying two clays) soil profile is applied as the assumed soil condition and the soil-structure interaction (SSI) analysis is performed by using ANSYS to analyze the effect of the slope change of the bottom plate and water jetting on the reaction of soil. This kind of investigation and simulation is needed to develop optimal and smart spudcan with water-jetting control in the future.