Performance of Suction Pile Anchor for Floating Offshore Structures

Abstract

Offshore structures are huge concrete or steel structure used for extracting the oil and gas from earth’s crust and used for producing renewable energy. The suction pile anchor is connected to the floating structure by mooring line which is attached to the pad-eye position on the side of suction pile anchor to maintain it in position. In this paper, the results of analyses of suction pile anchor in dense sand, medium sand, and clay soil bed are presented. For this purpose model of suction pile anchor was developed in MIDAS GTS 3D software. For a suction pile anchor of a particular dimension, mooring positions and load inclination angle of mooting line were varied. From the analyses, pullout force-displacement curves were developed and pullout capacities of the suction pile anchor were evaluated. Design charts were then developed which gives the length and diameter of suction pile anchors for a given pullout force.