Models for the Behavior of Offshore Structure Foundations. Part One: Methodologies and Rheological Models for Soils

Abstract

Designing the foundations of offshore structures is a complex task, requiring both expert experience and the use of numerical models for safety insurance and design cost optimization. In fact, forecasting foundation behavior demands a correct evaluation of the combined effects of construction phasing, spatial variability of the soil mechanical properties, uncertainties on the applied loadings and due to the geomaterial mechanical modeling techniques. For offshore platforms, this is compounded by the hazardous nature of environmental loadings. These loadings, which are often very severe, could have disastrous effects on structure behavior. This dissertation presents the synthesis of a ten-year research program, developed by a team of Institut Francais du Petrole, with the cooperation of university teams, technical centers and industrial companies. The objective was to set up methodologies and numerical tools for the behavior of typical offshore structure foundations, spanning their entire life. It is presented in two distinct parts. The first part presents specific methodologies for the soil/structure interaction analysis of offshore platforms, and discusses the development of rheological models for soil behavior under non-monotonous loading. The second part considers the use of these sophisticated models for analyzing offshore structure foundations. It shows how these models are integrated in the FONDOF/IFP software, by using the finite element method coupled with algorithms specific to the problems posed by offshore foundations. Several applications are presented, demonstrating the ability of these methods to describe observed phenomena. A special place is reserved for the description of a quality assurance process developed by the French GRECO CNRS 'Geomaterials' Group of university teams, technical centers and industrial companies. The steps of a process for validating constitutive models are applied to a typical shallow foundation structure. Prospects opened up by the research are discussed.