Journal article

Numerical simulation of pushover tests on a model jack-up platform on clay

G Vlahos, MJ Cassidy, CM Martin

Geotechnique | ICE PUBL | Published : 2011

Abstract

This paper assesses a method for predicting the ultimate capacity and failure mode of a model jack-up platform subjected to monotonic pushover tests on soft clay. Separate structural and geotechnical analyses are incapable of making such predictions, so in this work integrated structural/geotechnical simulations are evaluated against detailed experimental pushover data. The commercial finite-element program Abaqus is used, with standard beam elements representing the jack-up structure and a user-defined element describing the behaviour of each spudcan footing by means of a force-resultant plasticity model. This model takes a macro-element approach by expressing the foundation behaviour purel..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council


Funding Acknowledgements

The research described in this paper was conducted when the first author was at the Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems (COFS) at the University of Western Australia. The pilot study for this work was carried out with the support of an Australian Research Council Small Grant (No. 009713) and further support was provided through the Australian Research Council's Discovery grant scheme (DP0345424). The second author is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT0990301). This support is gratefully acknowledged.