Free-Fall Penetration Behaviors of A New Dynamically Installed Plate Anchor in Marine Clay

Abstract

A new dynamically installed plate anchor, the Flying Wing Anchor®, has been developed as a sustainable anchor concept for deep-water offshore wind turbines. The anchor is firstly installed by free-fall penetration and then followed by drag embedment. If the anchor is subjected to environmental loads, it dives deeper to mobilize a higher capacity. This study presents a series of free-fall penetration tests with model anchors in different weights to assess the anchor behavior during the free-fall penetration performance in one-layer soil with a constant shear strength profile. Anchor velocities and embedment depths were measured by a magnetometer. An energy-based model and a force-based model were calibrated against the test results of model anchors with different weights. Based on the calibrated force-based model, a series of design charts were developed to estimate the embedment depth of anchors in different sizes and with different impact velocities in various marine clays. The framework to plot design charts presented herein can be potentially applied to other dynamically installed anchors to predict embedment depth in engineering practice.