Effect of water jetting parameters on the penetration behavior of jack-up spudcan in surficial sand condition

Abstract

The water jetting system for a jack-up spudcan requires the suitable design considering the platform/spudcan particulars, environments, and soil conditions, either the surficial clay or surficial sand. The usage of water jetting depends critically on soil conditions. The water jetting is usually used for the smooth and fast extraction of the spudcan in the surficial clay condition. It is also required for inserting spudcan up to the required depth in the surficial sand condition, which is investigated in this paper. Especially, it should be very careful to use the water jetting during an installation of spudcan in the surficial sand condition, because there is a risk of overturning accident related to the punch-through. Therefore, in this study, the effect of water jetting flow rate and time on the change of soil properties and penetration resistance is analyzed to better understand their interactions and correlations when inserting the spudcan with water jetting in surficial sand condition. For the investigation, a wind turbine installation jack-up rig (WTIJ) is selected as the target platform and the multi layered soil (surficial sand overlaying clays) is considered as the soil condition. The environmental loading and soil-structure interaction (SSI) analysis are performed by using CHARM3D and ANSYS. This kind of investigation and simulation is needed to decide the proper water jetting flow rate and time of spudcan for the given design condition.