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Confronting New Challenges and Sharing Knowledge, 1113 September 2007, London, UK
Abstract
The requirement to re-install spudcan foundations close to existing footprints has a signicant and
often detrimental effect both structurally on the jack-up legs load and stability and, geotechnically,
on the bearing capacity of the spudcan. The inuence of an existing footprint on the bearing capacity
and potential horizontal displacement of the spudcan have therefore been investigated experimentally
using a geotechnical centrifuge. The experimental arrangements feature a fully instrumented jack-up
leg, measuring axial forces and bending moments, coupled to a sliding device that allows free lateral
displacement of the spudcan (advancing previous experimental and nite element studies that have
prevented movement of the jack-up leg). This paper presents experimental results obtained by varying
the offset distance between the spudcan and the footprint for normally consolidated clay. Implications
for the reinstallation of jack-ups under these conditions are discussed.
1. Introduction
Reinstallation of jack-up units nearby pre-existing footprints is one of the challenges currently faced by the jack-up
industry (Figure 2). During the installation process, vertical
load is applied directly though the centre of the spudcan. In
the case of installation near a pre-existing footprint, where
the soil surface is uneven, an eccentric and/or inclined reaction from the soil will be applied to the spudcan. This will
tend to cause tilting of the spudcan that is resisted by the
development of bending moment in the leg, leading potentially to overloading of the legs. Although this problem has
been clearly identied2, 3, there are still no guidelines to assist operators in a safe reinstallation, aside from the recommendation to monitor leg loads via rack phase dierence
(RPD) during installation.
Previous investigations carried out by Clunie-Ross4 and
Stewart and Finnie5 showed that the critical oset ratio, ,
when the maximum leg bending moment is developed is
0.75 (measured as the centre-to-centre oset distance between the two installations, a, divided by the spudcan diameter, D see Figure 2). On the other hand, the highest
horizontal load was recorded at a normalised oset distance
of about 1.25. A more recent study6 aimed to quantify the
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Scale Factors
Density
Length
1/n
Displacement
1/n
Strain
Stress
Bending Stiness
n4
Acceleration
Force
n2
1/n
1/n2
2. Centrifuge Testing
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Proceedings of the 6th International Oshore Site Investigation and Geotechnics Conference:
Confronting New Challenges and Sharing Knowledge, 1113 September 2007, London, UK
Table 3: Properties of UWA Kaolin
Liquid Limit, LL
61%
Plastic Limit, PL
27%
Specic Gravity, Gs
2.60
23
2.140
0.205
0.044
Model
Length, L
95m*
190mm
Inertia, I
13.8m
Stiness, EI
1253mm4*
15m
60mm
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3. Experimental Results
The adopted sign convention is presented in Figure 8.
Vertical displacement is positive downwards. Positive lateral
displacement is dened as towards the centre of the preexisting footprint. All the gures are plotted in prototype
scale units, unless mentioned otherwise.
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Proceedings of the 6th International Oshore Site Investigation and Geotechnics Conference:
Confronting New Challenges and Sharing Knowledge, 1113 September 2007, London, UK
ratio. This was surprising, as the lateral displacement
during the unlocked reinstallation (discussed in the following section) demonstrated the displacement of the
spudcan towards more remoulded clay, which might
have been expected to result in a lower penetration resistance compared to the locked case.
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Proceedings of the 6th International Oshore Site Investigation and Geotechnics Conference:
Confronting New Challenges and Sharing Knowledge, 1113 September 2007, London, UK
eccentric vertical load. However, when the leg is free to move
horizontally, this asymmetry generates a horizontal force at
the spudcan level, resulting in a horizontal displacement towards the weaker material in the centre of the footprint, and
a corresponding lateral soil resistance acting on the leg. Both
forces (for which resultant is nil) apply at dierent location
in the structure and create a negative bending moment. The
magnitude of the latter depends on the penetration depth
and the magnitude in lateral displacement.
These mechanisms are clearly observable in Figure 13. Both
locked and unlocked proles feature a rapid increase in
bending moment in the rst few metres of penetration due
to the eccentric load on the spudcan. Once full embedment
is achieved, the proles diverge with a continuous increase
of bending moment in the locked reinstallation, as already
observed by Steart and Finnie5, and a decrease and reversal
of bending moment with depth for the unlocked case,
which reaches its maximum negative value at a penetration
of about 12m before increasing again. It should be noted
that the subsequent decrease and increase of bending moment for the unlocked reinstallation coincides exactly with
the beginning and the end of the lateral displacement, respectively, validating the assumptions regarding the mechanisms presented previously. Another important observation
is the reduction in bending moment magnitude by a factor
of 2 when the leg is free to move horizontally.
Figure 14 presents the bending moment proles of all tests performed with the sliding device unlocked, in comparison to the
one from the initial penetration. The following is observed:
During the rst few metres of penetration, a positive
bending moment is generated, as described earlier. The
amplitude of this bending moment and the depth of its
maximum value depend on the oset ratio, although the
variation is relatively small (between 4.9 and 5.2MNm
over a depth varying from 3 to 4m).
Beyond an embedment of 4m, there is a clear dierence
in behaviour between spudcans reinstalled at an oset
ratio, , lower or equal to 0.75 and those reinstalled at
Figure 14: Bending moment at the platform level during reinstallation at ve dierent osets with unlocked reinstallation
free horizontal movement cases (prototype scale)
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References
1. Osborne JJ, Pelley D, Nelson C and Hunt R. (2006).
Unpredicted jack-up foundation performance. Proceedings of
Jack-Up Asia Conference and Exhibition, PetroMin, Singapore,
78 December.
Figure 16: Bending moment comparison between the normal spudcan and the skirted spudcan, with oset, = 1
(prototype scale)
ment was observed. The results obtained were encouraging.
The lateral displacement was reduced by about 27% (from
5.2 to 4.95m) as shown in Figure 15. Most importantly,
this reduction of lateral displacement did not result in an
increase of the bending moment in the leg, as demonstrated
in Figure 16.
4. Conclusions
Centrifuge tests were performed to assess the behaviour of
a spudcan foundation reinstalled nearby a previous footprint. These tests featured a new experimental device where
free lateral displacement of the spudcan was permitted and
were performed in addition to a previous test campaign in
which the lateral displacement was constrained. The main
conclusions are
Allowing free lateral spudcan displacement leads to a signicant reduction in the bending moment generated in
the spudcan leg during reinstallation.
The critical oset ratio dened in this case as the position of maximum lateral displacement is found to
be 1. The maximum lateral displacement is reached at
an embedment of 1.33 diameter of the spudcan and is
~35% of the spudcan diameter.
The lateral displacement may be signicantly reduced
without increasing the bending moment in the leg by
equipping the spudcan with a circular skirt.
These results are a rst step towards the understanding of
the reinstallation behaviour of the spudcan next to an existing footprint. A more complex analysis is now required to
account for the full interaction between the spudcans, legs
and hull, and to integrate a structural analysis in addition
to the geotechnical analysis.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the contribution of Mr Bart
Thompson, drum centrifuge operator, who assisted with
the centrifuge experiments, and Messrs Tuarn Brown
and Phil Hortin, who assisted with the development of
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