Peak uplift resistance of offshore slender structures shallowly buried in the sloping seabed considering wave actions

Abstract

The current practice for the pipe-soil interaction mainly focuses on the pipelines which are buried in the level ground, and ocean waves are rarely considered. However, sloping topographies and wave actions are often encountered by offshore slender structures. This study numerically investigated their peak uplift resistances, taking multiple factors, i.e., the slope effect and wave effect, into account simultaneously. The numerical model was first verified by the available analytical and experimental results. It was found that the normalized peak uplift resistance decreases as the slope angle increases, especially for smaller burial ratios. The presence of wave troughs weakens the traditional peak uplift resistance. For the given burial ratio and slope angle, the reduction in the peak uplift resistance increases almost linearly with the local wave steepness. For steeper slopes and smaller burial ratios, this reduction becomes larger because of more intense upward seepage. The effects of local relative water depth and wave period were also studied. Finally, a preliminary formula for the reduction in the peak uplift resistance of shallowly-buried offshore slender structures was proposed to consider the slope effect and wave effect.