Behaviour of vertically loaded plate anchors under sustained uplift

Abstract

The use of plate anchors in permanent moorings for deep-water floating structures requires a thorough understanding of their performance under sustained and cyclic loading. This paper addresses the former aspect through a series of centrifuge tests on vertically loaded plate anchors in normally consolidated kaolin clay, supported by large-deformation finite-element analyses. The centrifuge experiments, which included particle image velocimetry measurements to identify the conditions leading to anchor failure, demonstrate that sustained loading can be maintained indefinitely if the anchor displacement at application of the sustained loading does not exceed 40% of the displacement reached at m..