Improving plate anchor design with a keying flap

Abstract

Suction embedded plate anchors have been increasingly applied in deepwater projects because of their efficiency and limited cost. Current industry practice equips the fluke of the anchor with an outwardly rotating keying flap aiming at a reduction of the loss of embedment during keying. However, recent experimental and numerical research has questioned the efficiency of the keying flap currently used in practice because it has demonstrated that the flap does not open during keying as was intended. This paper presents a two-dimensional plain strain large deformation finite-element analysis by assuming the soil as homogenous to investigate the performance of plate anchors equipped with various..