Finite Element Analyses Applied in Design of Foundations

and Anchors for Offshore Structures

Lars Andresen1; Hans Petter Jostad2; and Knut H. Andersen, M.ASCE3

Abstract: Offshore structures for oil and gas exploitation are designed to accommodate severe environments with large cyclic loads. These
structures are either founded directly on the seabed, or they are moored to anchors installed in the seabed soil. The permanent and cyclic
loading, the foundation or anchor geometry, and the nonlinear soil behavior may be very complex, and many interrelated aspects must be
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considered in the geotechnical design of the foundations. Finite-element analyses (FEAs) are used increasingly to deal with these complex-
ities and offer the potential to increase accuracy, efficiency, and reliability and reduce the uncertainty of the design process. This paper
presents the major geotechnical aspects in the design of foundations for offshore structures and examples from finite-element analyses carried
out at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) to deal with these aspects. A brief review of the procedure used at NGI to obtain soil
stress-strain-strength relationships from cyclic laboratory tests is included. It is demonstrated that FEA offers several benefits over classical
methods, such as limiting equilibrium calculations. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)GM.1943-5622.0000020. © 2011 American Society of Civil
Engineers.
CE Database subject headings: Finite element method; Offshore structures; Foundations; Design; Cyclic Loads.
Author keywords: Finite-element method; Offshore structures; Foundation design; Cyclic loads.

Introduction 5. Soil reactions against the structure; and

Offshore structures for oil and gas exploitation may be subjected to
severe environmental loads from waves, wind, current, and pos-
sibly, ice and earthquakes. Strict requirements are set for the opti-
mum performance of their foundation systems, and the foundation
design is a key activity in the overall engineering process of such
structures. The foundations must be designed for the expected per-
manent and cyclic load history. The bearing capacity under cyclic
loading may be higher or lower than the bearing capacity for
monotonic loading, depending on the cyclic degradation, and large
cyclic and permanent displacements may develop (see Fig. 1).
Various types of structures and foundation systems are used,
such as piled jackets, jackets with caissons (skirted foundations),
jack-up rigs on spud-cans or mats, floating structures moored to
different types of anchors, and steel or concrete gravity base struc-
tures (GBSs) with or without skirts.
The major aspects in geotechnical engineering that are typically
considered in the design of foundations for offshore structures are:
1. Bearing capacity and sliding resistance;
2. Installation aspects;
3. Foundation stiffness;
4. Consolidation and settlements;
1
Division Director, Norwegian Geotechnical Inst., P.O. Box 3930
Ullevaal Stadion, N-0806 Oslo, Norway (corresponding author). E-mail:
Lars.Andresen@ngi.no
2
Expert Advisor, Norwegian Geotechnical Inst., P.O. Box 3930 Ullevaal
Stadion, N-0806 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: Hans.Petter.Jostad@ngi.no
3
Technical Director, Norwegian Geotechnical Inst., P.O. Box 3930
Ullevaal Stadion, N-0806 Oslo, Norway. E-mail: Knut.H.Andersen@ngi
.no
Note. This manuscript was submitted on July 2, 2009; approved on
March 10, 2010; published online on March 19, 2010. Discussion period
open until May 1, 2012; separate discussions must be submitted for indi-
vidual papers. This paper is part of the International Journal of Geome-
chanics, Vol. 11, No. 6, December 1, 2011. ©ASCE, ISSN 1532-3641/
2011/6-417–430/$25.00.
6. Soil-structure interaction (SSI)
These aspects, which may be strongly interrelated, are shown
schematically in Fig. 2. Even though hand calculations and limit
equilibrium methods (LEM) have been, and still are being used,
finite-element analyses (FEAs) are used increasingly to deal with
the aforementioned aspects. FEAs have many advantages, includ-
ing the ability to include complex geometries, spatially varying soil
properties, advanced nonlinear and anisotropic constitutive models,
and partial consolidation under long-term loading, to name a few.
This paper presents examples of FEAs performed at the Norwegian
Geotechnical Institute (NGI) for all six of the listed aspects typi-
cally considered in geotechnical foundation design. Objectives are
to demonstrate that numerical modeling and FEA enable the engi-
neer to solve problems that otherwise can’t be solved, to aid in de-
veloping new foundation concepts, to contribute to a more optimal
design, and to help reduce the uncertainties in the design process.
However, these examples also illustrate that great care must be
taken and that specialized knowledge in FEA is required. The paper
is organized in six sections for the various design aspects. The
framework used at NGI to account for the effects of cyclic loading
on soil behavior is briefly reviewed in the section on cyclic loading
and soil properties. The reader should be aware that this paper is not
a comprehensive review of FEA applied to offshore foundation de-
sign; rather, it is a summary of work performed at NGI.
Cyclic Loading and Soil Properties
Loading
Offshore structures are subjected to multidirectional loading F ¼
½F x ; F y ; F z ; M x ; M y ; M z
that may be separated into average loads
Fa , e.g., weight W 0 of the structure and the sustained components
of the stormlike winds and currents, and cyclic loads Fcy ,
e.g., wave, ice, and earthquake actions. The wave action will, in

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Int. J. Geomech. 2011.11:417-430.


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Fig. 1. Load-displacement curve for cyclic and static (monotonic)
loading
addition, cause cyclic pressure variations Δpw;cy on the seabed
outside the structure (Fig. 3).
The real irregular cyclic load history is, for design purposes,
normally simplified into a design storm composition of a certain
duration, e.g., a 100-year return-period storm with an 18-h build-
up and 6-h peak period. Cyclic loading is grouped into several
(i…n) load packages with a certain number of waves N i at different
load levels f cy;i . N i = number of cycles; and f cy;i ¼ F cy =F cy;max =
load level for load package i. The cyclic load period T p is typically
10–15 s for wave loading and approximately 1 s for earthquake
loading.
Fig. 3 shows the geometry, the loading, and a simplified illus-
tration of the shear stresses along a potential failure surface for
an offshore gravity base structure. The average shear stress τ a is
composed of the initial shear stress τ 0 ¼ 1=2σ0v0 ð1  K 0 Þ from
the anisotropic in situ consolidation stresses and an additional shear
stress Δτ a ¼ f ðFa Þ induced by the average loading. The cyclic
shear stress τ cy ¼ f ðFcy Þ is induced by the cyclic loading. The ini-
tial shear stress τ 0 has been acting under fully drained conditions,
whereas the additional average shear stress Δτ a and the cyclic
shear stress τ cy may, in general, act under partly drained conditions,
Fig. 2. Major geotechnical aspects considered in design of foundations for offshore structures
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Int. J. Geomech. 2011.11:417-430.
depending on drainage conditions, loading rate, and soil drainage
characteristics.
Cyclic Soil Properties
A soil element subjected to cyclic loading will develop average ua
and cyclic ucy excess pore pressure, and average γa and cyclic γcy
shear strains that increase with time or increasing number of cycles,
as illustrated in Fig. 4. Ultimately, the strains will become very
large (γa and/or γcy > 15%) and the soil element is considered
to have reached failure.
The development of pore pressure and shear strain will depend
on the combination of average τ a and cyclic τ cy shear stresses. By
running several laboratory tests with different combinations of τ a
and τ cy , diagrams of the type shown in Fig. 5 are established. The
diagrams show the strain response after N ¼ 100 cycles for a soil
element in direct simple shear (DSS), triaxial compression, and ex-
tension mode of loading. It is seen that the response depends on the
stress path and the average shear stress τ a . Similar diagrams may be
established for various numbers of cycles, e.g., N ¼ 1, 10, or 1,000.
The cyclic shear strength is the maximum shear stress that can
be mobilized, i.e., the sum of average and cyclic shear stresses
τ f cy ¼ τ a;f þ τ cy;f at failure (i.e., 15% strain). Cyclic strength de-
pends on the number of cycles N, the average shear stress τ a , and
the stress path, i.e., triaxial compression (TXC), triaxial extension
(TXE), or DSS, and can be determined from diagrams of the type
shown in Fig. 5. A general stress path may be defined by the angle
α between the major principal stress σ1 and the vertical, and the
cyclic strength τ f cy ðN; τ a; ; αÞ may be obtained by interpolation be-
tween results obtained for TXC (α ¼ 0°), DSS (α ∼ 30°), and TXE
(α ∼ 90°). The diagrams in Fig. 5 also give information about the
cyclic and average shear stress-shear strain relationship as a func-
tion of the cyclic shear stress; examples are given in Fig. 6.
The diagrams in Figs. 5 and 6 give the soil behavior for a cyclic
load history with N cycles of constant cyclic shear stress. In a
storm, however, the cyclic shear stress is likely to vary from one
cycle to the next, similar to that shown in the load table in Fig. 3(c).
The equivalent number of cycles N eqv of the maximum cyclic shear
stress is, therefore, defined. N eq (less than N) is the number of
cycles of the maximum load that would give the same effect as
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Fig. 3. Loading and soil response for an offshore gravity base structure: (a) plan view of foundation and loading; (b) cross section with simplified soil
stress conditions; (c) design load parcels; (d) definition of average F a and cyclic F cy load components

following the cyclic load history with varying load intensity. For
clays, i.e., undrained conditions, N eqv may be determined by keep-
ing track of the cyclic shear strain during the cyclic load history by
the “strain accumulation” procedure (Andersen et al. 1992). For
sands or conditions with drainage, N eqv can be determined by keep-
ing track of the permanent pore pressure accumulated during the
cyclic load history (Jostad et al. 1997; Andersen et al. 1994). The
reason for using the pore pressure accumulation procedure for sand
is that some drainage is likely to occur during the load history in
sand. It is assumed, however, that drainage does not have time to
occur within each cycle. To account for drainage, it is necessary to
keep track of the accumulated pore pressure.
The accumulation procedures use strain or pore pressure con-
tour diagrams of the type presented in Fig. 7 and storm load
compositions of the type presented in Fig. 3(c). The diagrams in
Fig. 7 were established based on the same laboratory tests as the
ones used to establish the diagrams in Fig. 5.
In principle, a constitutive model could be formulated that fol-
lows each individual cycle and used in a time domain FE analysis
with the complete load history. At the present, NGI does not have
such a model for that purpose that is sufficiently robust and fits
laboratory data accurately enough. Instead, the relationships given
in Figs. 5–7 are used in the constitutive models that are imple-
mented into the FE programs used for offshore foundation design
at NGI. Because the average shear stress and the cyclic strength are
functions of the cyclic shear stress, it is necessary to know the
cyclic shear stress when entering the diagrams in Figs. 5–7. This
is done by calculating the shear stresses in the soil as functions of
the cyclic loads F cy . In FEA, iterations are performed to update
τ a ¼ τ a ðτ cy Þ as the τ cy distribution changes (Jostad and Andresen Fig. 4. Shear stress, shear strain, and pore pressure during cyclic
loading
2009).

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Fig. 5. Contours of accumulated average shear strain γa and cyclic
shear strain amplitudes γcy for combinations of average and cyclic
shear stresses for normally consolidated Drammen clay after N ¼
100 cycles: (a) DSS loading; (b) triaxial compression and extension
loading
Bearing Capacity
Bearing capacity and horizontal sliding stability are probably the
most important aspects of foundation design. Calculations are per-
formed to check that the foundation can carry the design loads with
adequate safety against failure or excessive deformations. Usually a
limit-state design is used, and different ultimate-limit-states are
considered, such as the storm load with a 100-year return period.
Traditionally, the limit equilibrium method has been used in such
calculations; however, FEA is increasingly used and has the advan-
tages that more complex geometries and loading may be accounted
for, it is more rigorous, and the governing failure mechanism is
identified automatically by the method, i.e., there is no need for
a search through possible governing mechanisms. Examples from
bearing capacity analyses for a concrete gravity base platform, the
holding capacity of a suction anchor, and the capacity of a jacket
platform founded on skirted foundations are given in this section.
Bearing Capacity of a Gravity Base Platform
The bearing capacity of the offshore structure shown in Fig. 3 was
analyzed using 3D FEA, and the analyses are documented in more
detail in Andresen et al. (2007). This platform is used for storage
and processing of liquid natural gas (LNG) and is 200 m long,
100 m wide, and 60 m high. The water depth is 25 m. The foun-
dation consists of a flat base that is grouted in full contact with the
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Fig. 6. Average shear stress–shear strain relationships as function of
cyclic shear stress amplitude: (a) DSS loading; (b) triaxial compression
and extension loading
seabed and has several rows of corrugated steel skirts penetrating
1 m into the soil. The skirts are for scour protection and to prevent
sliding along the weaker topsoil. The submerged on-bottom weight
W 0 of the structure in operation is 2,000 MN, included added ballast
that provides increased mean effective stresses and thus increased
shear strength of the underlying soil.
Trial analyses were run to identify the governing failure mecha-
nism and the sufficient model dimensions. It was important to min-
imize the model dimensions to obtain a fine mesh discretization
with a reasonable computation time (overnight). The Plaxis 3D
Foundation program (Plaxis 3D Foundation 2.1)was used with
9,000 15-noded wedge elements discretizing the soil and the foun-
dation base slab.
The soil consists of medium stiff clay to 5 m depth and then
medium dense fine sand below the clay to great depths. The effects
of consolidation from the platform weight W 0 and the pore pressure
buildup and partial drainage during the storm are accounted for
when assessing the strength. The strengths were assessed on the
basis of site-specific cyclic laboratory tests and the storm compo-
sition shown in Fig. 3(c), using the accumulation procedures from
Andersen et al. (1994). Only the waves with load level higher than
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Fig. 7. Contour diagrams for soil response in a DSS test as function of
number of cycles and cyclic shear stress level: (a) cyclic shear strain
response; (b) accumulated pore pressure response
30% of the maximum waves were used because a lower load was
found to have no degrading effect on the strength. This resulted
in N eqv ¼ 10 and the shear strength profiles that are shown in
Fig. 8(b). The figure shows the cyclic shear strength for τ a ¼ 0
for the clay layer (layer II) and the sand layer (layer III) below
the platform and outside the platform. The wave loading is two-
way symmetrical with F a ¼ 0, which results in τ a ¼ 0 on the
horizontal plane that constitutes nearly 90% of the failure mecha-
nism. The strength below the platform is higher than outside the
platform footprint because of the increased effective stresses from
the platform weight. The effect of the platform weight load spread
(distribution of Δσ0v below the platform) is accounted for by an
approximated simple 1∶3 rule, as shown on Fig. 8(a).
The resulting failure mechanism is shown in Fig. 9 and consists
mainly of sliding in the y-direction along the top of the weaker layer
at 5 m depth. Passive and active earth pressure resistance develop
along the 200-m-wide and 5-m-deep windward and leeward planes.
Side shear develops along the 100-m-wide and 5-m-deep side
planes. This characterizes the geometry of the main failure mecha-
nism; however, torsion, overturning moments, and the uneven
distribution of seabed pressure also affect the mechanism. Fig. 9(a)
shows that the torsion causes some rotation of the foundation.
Discretization Error
Capacity calculations carried out by FEA will always contain dis-
cretization errors, i.e., there will be an overshoot in the calculated
ultimate capacity. This error is a result of the simplification done in
FEA, where the continuous displacement field is represented by a
finite number of element interpolations. The discretization error can
be reduced by using a finer mesh, with the penalty of an increased
computational cost. It is not possible to quantify the error from the
result of one analysis with only one mesh realization, and often one
must then rely on experience from similar problems to judge if the
discretization error is acceptable.
For the problem presented in the section on the bearing capacity
of a gravity base platform, the discretization error was quantified
by calculating the horizontal load capacity with the same FE model
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Fig. 8. FE calculations for bearing capacity of a gravity base platform:
(a) element discretization and material layering below and outside of
foundation; (b) cyclic shear strength τ f ;cy profiles for triaxial compres-
sion (TXC), direct simple shear (DSS), and triaxial extension (TXE)
but with different meshes with varying numbers of elements. The
results are shown in Fig. 10. It is seen that, by increasing the
number of elements [reducing the average element size (AES)],
the calculated capacity is reduced. It is possible to fit a curve to
the results that can be extrapolated to AES ¼ 0 (infinite number
of elements), where the discretization error vanishes.
The example from the section on the bearing capacity of a
gravity base platform demonstrates that 3D FEAs are suited for
calculating bearing capacities of offshore foundations with multi-
directional loading and complex geometries, such as skirted bases.
However, one should be aware that there may be a need for a
very fine mesh discretization to avoid overshooting. Furthermore,
care should be taken because little experience and only limited
validation examples exist for the application of 3D FEAs to such
problems.
Holding Capacity of Suction Anchors
An industry sponsored study on the design and analysis of
deepwater anchors in soft clay was completed in 2003, in which
NGI participated with the Offshore Technology Research Center
(OTRC) in the United States and the Center for Offshore Founda-
tion Systems (COFS) in Australia. The study is documented in
Andersen et al. (2005). Independent 3D finite element analyses
for several hypothetical cases were performed by NGI, COFS,
and OTRC.
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Fig. 9. Failure mechanism plotted as contour shadings of displace-
ments at failure: (a) top view showing rotational displacements caused
by torsion moment (displacement vectors are tangential to contour
lines); (b) short side cross section
Fig. 10. The effect of mesh refinement in FEA: Horizontal load capa-
city versus average element size (number of elements); dotted curve
represents proposed extrapolation towards AES ¼ 0
The case, C2, consisted of an open cylindrical anchor with
weight W 0 ¼ 300 kN, diameter B ¼ 5 m, and depth D ¼ 7:5 m,
giving a depth-to-diameter ratio of D=B ¼ 1:5. The soil cyclic shear
strength (τ f cy ¼ su ) data was: sDSS
u ¼ 1:25 × z, sCu ¼ 1:2 × sDSS
u ,
su ¼ 0:8 × su
E DSS and with su along the outside skirt wall =
0:65 × sDSS
u . Fig. 11(a) shows holding capacities for this case calcu-
lated by the three groups (NGI, UWA, and OTRC) for various load
angles from pure horizontal to pure vertical loading. In each case the
load is attached to the anchor at the optimal attachment point such
that the anchor is prevented from rotating.
Fig. 11(b) shows the failure mechanism for a load angle of 45°
calculated by NGI using the program BIFURC 3D (NGI 1999).
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Fig. 11. Holding capacities of a suction anchor calculated by 3D FEA:
(a) capacities calculated for various combinations of horizontal (H) and
vertical (V) loads; (b) deformed mesh and contour shadings of displa-
cements illustrating failure mechanism for 45° loading angle
It can be seen that the anchor is not rotating and that the mechanism
involves some of the soil underneath the skirt tip level.
The overall conclusion from this study was that the 3D FEA
results were in good agreement. The difference in capacity calcu-
lated by the different groups was generally less than 3%, and the
capacities were approximately 10% higher than the results NGI ob-
tained by using limiting equilibrium methods. Hence, it was dem-
onstrated that by 3D FEA, reliable results were obtained that were
less conservative than the results obtained by limiting equilibrium
calculation. From this and other studies, it has been found that it is
important to model the anisotropy of the undrained shear strength
and the reduced undrained shear strength along the outside skirt
wall adequately. It has also proven to be very efficient to use special
zero-thickness interface elements along the skirt outside and under-
neath the skirt tip. If such elements are not used, it may be neces-
sary to use an extremely fine mesh discretization in these areas to
allow for a possible full slip between the anchor and the soil.
Capacity of Skirted Foundations on a Steel Jacket
Platform
The Draupner-E platform is a steel jacket located 160 km off-
shore from Norway at a water depth of 70 m. The structure and
the experience of installation of the jacket are documented by
Tjelta (1995). Unlike most jacket platforms, which are supported
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Fig. 12. (a) Draupner jacket being lifted onto a barge (Image courtesy
of Leif Berge, Statoil); (b) uplift capacity of skirted foundation versus
vertical displacements for different loading rates calculated by fully
coupled FEA
by piles, Draupner is founded on steel bucket foundations (see
Fig. 12(a)).
The four cylindrical foundations, each 12 m in diameter, are
equipped with 40-mm-thick steel skirts that penetrate 6 m into
the seabed by applied suction. The soil conditions consist of very
dense sand with a relative density Dr in the range 90–100% in the
top 23 m.
Whereas clay generally is undrained during a typical storm his-
tory, sand may respond fully drained during changes in the average
load and, at the same time, respond undrained to the short-term
loading from single wave cycles. The long-term drained vertical
uplift capacity of these foundations is, therefore, quite low and con-
sists only of drained inside and outside wall friction. However, the
capacity for the short-duration (T p ∼ 11 s) wave load with a typical
rate of 0:2 MN=s is much higher, as illustrated in Fig. 12(b).
NGI has implemented a special constitutive model for the analy-
sis of such jackets with skirted foundations in sand in the in-house
finite element program BIFURC (NGI 1999). The main parameter
in this model is the accumulated pore pressure ua as a function
of the cyclic shear-stress amplitude τ cy and number of cycles N.
The soil response for the average load F a is calculated using the
mobilized friction model (Nordal et al. 1989). The accumulated
pore pressure is calculated based on the cyclic shear-stress ampli-
tude τ cy , calculated from the cyclic loads F cy in a separate analysis,
with input of the actual equivalent number of cycles in each inte-
gration point N eq . The τ cy may be calculated by a nonlinear elastic
constitutive model expressing the relationship between τ cy and γcy ,
shown in Fig. 5. The equivalent number of cycles is found from
pore pressure contour diagrams of the type shown in Fig. 7(b).
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Fig. 13. Idealized cyclic vertical load history and calculated vertical
displacements of leeward leg of a jacket during a 6-h peak storm period
By using this constitutive model together with a coupled stress
equilibrium and pore water flow (consolidation) finite-element for-
mulation, it is possible to analyze pore pressure accumulation and
dissipation problems. The procedure is described in more detail in
Jostad et al. (1997). As a validation of the procedure, the response
of a bucket foundation resembling the ones for the Draupner plat-
form was calculated. The average vertical load on each foundation
prior to the storm loading was 10 MN. Fig. 13 shows the idealized
cyclic load history, with increasing average V a and cyclic V cy ver-
tical load, and the calculated vertical displacements (maximum,
minimum, and permanent) during a 6-h peak design storm period.
The results are for the skirted foundation that experiences increased
average vertical load during the storm (leeward leg). The horizontal
load component is assumed to be taken by the less mobilized foun-
dations. It can be seen that the failure mode is the development of
large vertical settlements.
Installation
Suction anchors and skirted gravity base foundations have steel or
concrete skirts that protrude into the soil during installation. The
skirts penetrate down into the soil as a result of the weight of the
structure or a combination of the self-weight and an applied under-
pressure under the base. The installation method and process affect
important aspects of the design such as the penetration resistance,
the distribution of contact stresses between the foundation structure
and the soil, and the shear strength along the skirts (friction capac-
ity of the skirts).
Numerical analysis of installation processes such as the penetra-
tion of a steel skirt into the seabed is extremely challenging. Ideally,
the analysis should account for a large deformation, a continuously
changing contact area, and remolding of the soil. Methods that
handle large deformations such as the updated Lagrangian (UL) or
the material point method (MPM) (Coetzee et al. 2005; Beuth et al.
2007) are promising but still under development and not used
 regularly in design practice. The arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian
(ALE) and the discrete element method (DEM) are also worth
mentioning and have been used to model large deformations,
e.g., Liu et al. (1998) and Cundall and Strack (1979). In this sec-
tion, results are presented from a study where small- and large-
deformation FEAs were carried out to study how the soil displaced
by a penetrating skirt may affect the horizontal stresses along the
outside skirt wall.

Set-Up Effect along Bucket Anchor Outside Skirt Wall

An important part of bucket anchor design in clay is the determi-
nation of the shear strength along the outside skirt wall in the opera-
tional condition. This shear strength is affected by the horizontal
stress increase resulting from soil being displaced outward from
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the advancing skirt tip during installation. The strength is also

highly affected by the sensitivity of the clay, the dissipation of
excess pore pressures with time, and thixotropy, as shown by
Andersen and Jostad (2002). Strength increases with time, and this
effect is often referred to as set-up.
During self-weight penetration, a significant part of the soil dis-
placed by the skirt will move outside the skirt wall, as for driven
piles. When underpressure is applied, however, most of the clay
displaced by the skirt is expected to move into the anchor. The out-
ward soil movement during weight penetration will cause a signifi-
cant increase in the horizontal stress outside the skirt wall, whereas
the movement of soil into the anchor during underpressure penetra-
tion may give significantly smaller horizontal stress buildup or even
stress reduction.
The soil movements and horizontal stress buildup were studied
by a small deformation stepwise geometry updated FEA procedure
for both a flat and a tapered skirt tip by Andersen et al. (2004),
using the Plaxis program. Later, this process was studied in more
detail at NGI by large-deformation FE analyses with the Abaqus
and Plaxis programs, using the updated Lagrangian method. An
example of a FE model from these studies is shown in Fig. 14(a). Fig. 14. Finite element analysis of suction anchor installation: (a) FE
The anchor has a diameter D ¼ 5:5 m, skirt thickness t ¼ 0:05 m, model; (b) horizontal displacements field (vectors) around tapered skirt
penetration depth Z ¼ 16 m, and a tapered tip. Interface elements tip during penetration by underpressure
were used to model the disturbed zone of clay between the “intact”
clay and steel skirt and in the interfaces between the clay and the
skirt tip. An undrained shear-strength profile su ¼ 2:0 þ 1:25·depth
procedure (Andersen et al. 2004) agreed very well with results
(kPa) was modeled. obtained with large-deformation updated Lagrangian analyses.
To model accurately both the in- and outside skirt friction and
the skirt tip bearing capacity, a finite element mesh with extreme
local refinement in the skirt tip region and with interface elements Foundation Stiffness
around the skirt tip was used. For the mesh shown in Fig. 14(a), the
ratio between the model width (20 m) and the skirt thickness The assessment of the foundation stiffness and the cyclic displace-
(0.05 m) is ~400. The ratio between the dimensions of the largest ments are important topics in the design of foundations for offshore
and smallest element in the mesh is about the same. structures. The maximum cyclic displacement amplitudes in a
Fig. 14(b) shows vectors of horizontal displacements around the storm may be of interest for, e.g., the design of pipelines connected
tapered skirt tip during penetration at 14 m depth. It is seen that the to the foundation, and the foundation stiffness may be used in the
soil along the tapered part of the skirt moves outside the skirt wall. dynamic analyses carried out for the structural design of the plat-
However, the underpressure causes a portion of the soil to move form superstructure (shafts or legs and topside).
inside the skirt at some depth below the advancing skirt tip. The
soil being continuously moved outside of the advancing tip during Rotational Stiffness of the Troll-A Platform
penetration is causing a stress buildup along the skirt outside wall. The Troll-A platform is a huge concrete gravity base structure
Fig. 15(a) shows contours of added horizontal stress in the vicinity located in the Norwegian trench at a water depth of 305 m. The
of the skirt tip for a case with self-weight penetration. platform was installed in 1995. The foundation design performed
In Fig. 15(b), the permanent stress change, after final penetration, by NGI is described in Hansen et al. (1992).
outside the skirt wall is shown. There is a significant permanent The foundation rotational stiffness and cyclic displacements
stress increase outside the skirt wall for self-weight penetration, during a storm have been calculated using the NGI in-house FE
whereas there is a stress reduction for penetration by underpressure. code INFIDEL (NGI 1991) and the Abaqus FE program. The plat-
Using a tapered skirt tip gives only a slightly different stress re- form and the FE model of its foundation are shown in Fig. 16.
sponse. The results from the small-strain stepwise updated geometry Symmetry and antisymmetry were utilized and a one-quarter model

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Fig. 16. Troll-A platform with its concrete gravity base structure and
Abaqus model for calculation of the rotational stiffness of foundation

Fig. 15. Results from suction anchor skirt penetration: (a) build-up of
horizontal stresses outside tapered skirt tip during self-weight penetra-
tion; (b) mean stress distribution in horizontal cross section at 13.7 m
depth for situation where skirt is being penetrated to its final depth
of 16 m

of the foundation, including the four shafts, the 19 concrete cais-

sons, and the 36-m-deep concrete skirts protruding into the subsoil,
was established. The soil layering is shown with different colors
down to 100 m. Infinite boundary elements with initial stiffness
(not shown) are used around the model periphery. The FE one-
quarter model has 1.3 million degrees of freedom.
The stiffness is calculated for various stages of cyclic loading,
i.e., one cycle of the maximum wave (N ¼ 1), or 300 cycles of the
maximum wave (N ¼ 300). Fig. 17(a) shows the calculated nor-
malized platform rotation as a function of the normalized overturn-
ing moment, and Fig. 17(b) shows the secant rotational (rocking)
stiffness during the moment loading. Note that the rotational stiff-
ness represents the cyclic displacement amplitude during the maxi-
mum wave as a function of the maximum wave load amplitude and
is, thus, not the load-displacement behavior in individual cycles. Fig. 17. Rotational stiffness of Troll-A platform, during installation
Because the soil is degraded during repeated cyclic loading, the (N ¼ 1) and for 100-year design storm (N ¼ 300) from Abaqus 3D
FEA: (a) overturning moment amplitudes versus rotation; (b) secant
stiffness is lower for the 100-year design storm (N ¼ 300) than
rotational stiffness versus overturning moment
during the application of one cycle (N ¼ 1). Nonlinear stress-strain

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Fig. 18. Deformed mesh and contour shadings of deformation during

application of maximum wave loading from Abaqus model of Troll-A
platform; maximum displacement at shaft level 110 m above seabed
is ~10 cm

relationships of the types shown in Fig. 6 for the relevant N and τ a

were used to obtain these results.
In some cases, the foundation may be regarded as rigid compared
to the soil stiffness; those cases do not require any sophisticated
modeling of the structure. However, in other cases, there may be
considerable flexibility in the structure and in its foundations. In
these cases, it may be necessary to perform a more sophisticated
soil-structure interaction analysis with realistic representation of
the structure geometry and stiffness. Fig. 18 shows an example in
which the flexibility of the structure relative to the soil is significant
and on which a full SSI analysis has been performed. The figure
shows the rotation and contour shadings of deformation during
application of the maximum wave moment.

Rotational Stiffness of the Shah Deniz “Jack-Up”

Foundations
The Shah Deniz platform is a permanent steel jack-up unit
(TPG500 concept from Technip) located in the Caspian Sea at a
water depth of ~100 m. The jack-up legs are founded on large steel
bucket foundations, as shown in Fig. 19. The three foundations are
30 m in diameter and equipped with corrugated steel skirts that are
penetrated 9 m into the seabed. The soil conditions are mainly sand
down to 18 m depth and clay underneath.
The load distribution between the legs and the maximum leg-
moment during a storm is highly dependent on the rotational stiff-
ness (fixity) of the foundations. An increased fixity reduces the
leg-moment and also the lateral displacement of the topside. The
dynamic load amplification is also dependent on the dynamic foun-
dation stiffness. The assessment of the static and dynamic founda-
tion stiffness was, therefore, a key activity in the design of both
the platform and its foundations. A complicating factor was that
the large-diameter foundations, and in particular, the top plates,
were quite flexible relative to the soil.
The foundation stiffness was calculated by 3D FEA using
the BIFURC 3D (NGI 1999) in-house program. Nonlinear elastic
stress-strain relationships of the types shown in Fig. 6 were used
for both the average M a and the cyclic M cy moment loading.
Fig. 19(b) shows the 3D FE model. The foundation was modeled
with shell elements, with interface elements below the top plate
Fig. 19. (a) TPG500 jack-up platform; (b) FE model of 30-m-diameter
skirted anchor
and along the in- and outside of the skirt walls. Prescribed dis-
placements were applied over the top plate. Because of the highly
nonlinear behavior, an iterative procedure was used where the
deflection pattern uðx; yÞ of the foundation top plate was calculated
by the Technip structural engineers, based on soil springs calcu-
lated by NGI.
Consolidation Settlements
Foundation design generally involves establishing the time-
settlement relationship during the lifetime of the structure. This
becomes especially important for gravity base platforms on clay
where the large weight can cause substantial settlements and the
low permeability may cause the consolidation process to last sev-
eral years.
Time-Settlement for a Gravity Base Platform
In this section, an example is given for the FE analysis of the time-
settlement relationship for a gravity base platform and for the

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Fig. 20. (a) Cam-clay type of stress-strain relationship; (b) 1st year
loading history and vertical settlements for gravity base platform
(GBS) and nearby seabed, calculated by FEA
seabed in the vicinity of the platform. The settlement of the seabed
was used as input in the design of a pipeline connection to the
platform.
The input data for the analysis are the geometry, soil layering,
soil permeability and stiffness, drainage conditions, and the load
history. The permeability and stiffness are both stress-dependent.
Cam-clay-type models like the one shown in Fig. 20(a) are well-
suited for representing stress-dependent stiffness and have memory
that accounts for preconsolidation stress.
Fig. 20(b) shows the first year load history and calculated set-
tlements for the gravity base platform and for points on the seabed
5, 10, 15, and 20 m off the platform. The fully coupled pore pres-
sure dissipation and equilibrium analyses were performed using the
Plaxis FE program with a cam-clay-type material model. The load
history reflects the gradually increasing ballast weight during the
first 90 days after installation. One cycle of on- and off-loading
represents the situation where the platform is filled to maximum
weight with liquid natural gas and then off-loaded to the average
weight. It can be seen that the platform settles ~80 cm during
the first year, whereas the surrounding seabed generally settles
10–20 cm. The pipeline connection was then designed for a relative
settlement of 70 cm over the nearest 20 m from the platform. Other
important components contributing to the total settlement of off-
shore foundations, like immediate settlements, creep, and effects
of cyclic loading, are not considered here.
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Fig. 21. Illustration of redistribution of average stress from a skirted
GBS foundation during cyclic loading: (a) FE model; (b) concentration
of average shear stress under the tip after application of weight loading
W 0 ; (c) reduction of average stresses (weight) under skirt tip; (d) in-
crease of average stresses (weight) underneath base during combination
of weight W 0 and cyclic loading V cy
Soil Reaction Distributions
For the structural design of the foundations, the distribution of
reaction stresses on the foundation for the different loading condi-
tions must be known. Aspects that are of particular interest may be
the distribution of contact stress underneath the base and how much
of the load is carried by the skirt wall and skirt tip compared to the
base. Normally, soil reactions are provided to the structural engi-
neers in the form of a number of possible distribution diagrams for
a set of unit load cases. There are aspects such as uneven seabed,
installation effects, and redistribution with time that make it very
difficult to accurately calculate reliable distributions. The reactions
are, therefore, in most cases, based on engineering judgment and
conservative estimates to provide a robust structural design. FEA
may, however, provide valuable insight into the mechanisms of load
transfer between the foundation and the soil. For skirted gravity
base foundations such as the one shown in Fig. 21(a), the main
interest is to assess the fraction of the submerged weight carried
by base contact stresses, skirt friction, and skirt tip resistance,
respectively. A reasonable estimate may be provided by applying
the submerged weight W 0 to a FE model such as the one shown
in Fig. 21(a) for the subsoil and the foundation with base and
skirts.
Redistribution during Cyclic Loading
The loads will, however, redistribute with time. During cyclic load-
ing, there will be a tendency for redistributing weight from the
skirts to the base. This is a result of the degradation of strength and
stiffness for combinations of average stress (caused by the weight)
and cyclic stress. A constitutive model for cyclic loading has been
developed at NGI in which the input is diagrams of the type shown
in Fig. 6. This model has been used in FEA of this load transfer
mechanism from skirt to base. The mechanism is illustrated in
Fig. 21(b). The soil below the skirt tip is highly mobilized as a
 result of weight loading and has to reduce the average stresses
(weight) when the cyclic stresses increase. Other parts of the foun-
dation, such as the base, are less mobilized by weight loading and
may increase both the cyclic and the average stresses, i.e., carry
more of the weight.

Soil-Structure Interaction

Structural design of offshore platforms is often based on highly

simplified, uncoupled foundation behavior. In reality, there may
be a large degree of interaction between the behavior of the soil,
the foundations, and the superstructure. In some cases, and in
particular, for quite flexible structures such as jack-ups, there is
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a potential benefit of accounting for this interaction. In this section,

an example is given of a full SSI analysis of a jack-up platform
using FEA.

Moment Fixity of a Jack-Up Platform

Three-legged jack-up units founded on spud-cans are widely used
offshore as mobile drilling units. In the conventional design, the
spud-can reaction forces are obtained from a structural analysis
with pinned footing conditions. There is a potential benefit in
accounting for the rotational stiffness of the footings because an
increased rotational stiffness will reduce the maximum bending
moment, hull displacement, and dynamic load amplification. Ac-
counting for vertical and horizontal flexibility of the footings will,
on the other hand, have the opposite effect.
In Jostad et al. (1994) a FEA procedure is presented for an
integrated analysis of a jack-up platform and its soil foundation
system where the nonlinear relationship between the spud-can
displacements and reaction forces is incorporated. Redistribution
of the reaction forces between the spud-cans is allowed until the
overall bearing capacity of the jack-up platform is reached. The
procedure is based on the following:
1. The cyclic force displacement characteristics of the spud-
can are calculated by FEA using the 3D code INFIDEL
(NGI 1991) and stress-strain relationships of the type shown
in Fig. 6 or Fig. 22(b).
2. The 3D bearing capacity envelopes (V,H,M) are established by
a limiting equilibrium analysis as proposed by Andersen and
Lauritzen (1988).
3. The cyclic force displacement curves and the bearing capacity
envelopes are implemented into a nonlinear structural FE
program for the soil-structure interaction analysis of the
jack-up.
The potential benefit of the procedure was demonstrated by an
example calculation (Jostad and Andersen 2006) of a three-legged
jack-up rig of the Gorilla Class, installed in a stiff clay site at a
water depth of 94 m. The rig has a longitudinal leg spacing of
56 m and a transverse leg spacing of 64 m. The available leg length
below the hull is 132 m. The weight of the platform during oper-
ation is 204 MN, which gives an average leg load of 68 MN. The
geometry of the spud-can, including the proposed skirt configura-
tion, is shown in Fig. 22(a). The moment fixity was increased by
equipping the footings with skirts that penetrate into the soil. The
inner and outer circular skirts are stiffened by 12 radial steel plates,
with thickness of 10 mm, connected to the spud-can tip.
The design storm is a 6-h storm with a 50-year return period.
The equivalent maximum lumped characteristic environmental load
caused by waves, wind, and current is 33.5 MN. The load accounts
for dynamic amplification assuming pinned footings. The stiff clay
profile has an average undrained shear strength sav u of 60 kPa that
is constant with depth. The overconsolidation ratio is 40 in the
Fig. 22. (a) 20-m-diameter skirted spud-can footing for jack-up
platform; (b) normalized cyclic shear stress versus shear strain curves
for clay
top 5 m and 4 below 5 m in depth. By the strain accumulation pro-
cedure, it is found that the equivalent number of cycles N eqv is ~10
for the upper clay with OCR ¼ 40 and ~7 for the clay below 5 m
depth with OCR ¼ 4. The corresponding normalized cyclic stress-
strain relationships are shown in Fig. 22(b).
The cyclic load-displacement relationships for the individual
foundations are computed by the 3D finite-element program,
INFIDEL. Because the loads on the individual footings depend
on both the stiffness of the structure and the load path-dependent
nonlinear stiffness of the individual footings, the analyses are
performed by integrated SSI analyses as described in Jostad
et al. (1994).
The main results from these SSI analyses are the maximum
horizontal cyclic displacement component of the hull, the critical
moment in the leg, and the global bearing capacity of the jack-up
platform, as functions of the load factor p multiplied by the
characteristic environmental load. The analyses give, in addition,
displacements and rotation of the individual footings and the cor-
responding reaction forces. Results for the windward and leeward
legs are shown in Figs. 23(a) and 23(b).
From Fig. 23(a), it can be seen that the load factor p, where the
moment in the lower leg guide becomes critical (i.e., equal to
1 GN m), is increased by approximately 16% by equipping the
spud-cans with skirts. The results without skirts are, in this case,
about the same as for pinned footings. Furthermore, it was found
that, by using skirts, the global bearing capacity of the jack-up plat-
form was increased by ~60%.
This type of analysis involving load path-dependent nonlinear
analyses of embedded circular foundations in a layered soil for all
load levels, including the combination of the average vertical load
and the cyclic loads that cause failure (large displacements) of the
individual foundation, is practically impossible without using the
finite-element method.

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Fig. 23. (a) Calculated leg-moment at lower guides versus load
factor for spud-can with and without skirts in stiff clay; (b) cyclic hor-
izontal footing load versus total vertical footing load for spud-can
with skirts in clay when loaded in direction that gives one single
leeward leg
Summary and Conclusions
In this paper, various aspects of the design of foundations and an-
chors for offshore structures used in oil and gas exploitation have
been presented. The main difference between onshore and offshore
foundation design is that the offshore foundations are always sub-
jected to cyclic loading which may cause soil strength and stiffness
degradation. In offshore geotechnics, we are also mostly dealing
with saturated soil.
A framework for accounting for the cyclic load history when
determining the static and cyclic soil stress-strain-strength relation-
ship has been developed at NGI and has been briefly presented
in the section of this paper regarding cyclic loading and soil
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Int. J. Geomech. 2011.11:417-430.
properties. This framework is validated by comparisons to field
and laboratory model tests and prototype structures (e.g., Andersen
et al. 1989, 1993) and has been used successfully in combination
with limiting equilibrium and finite-element analyses in foundation
design for numerous offshore structures safely operating all over
the world.
The finite-element method is increasingly used, offering several
benefits over the limiting equilibrium method. In this paper, exam-
ples are presented where FEAs have proved to be favorable.
Acknowledgments
This paper is a revised version of a paper originally presented at
the 12th IACMAG conference in 2008. The writers would like
to thank all colleagues who contributed to this work. We thank our
colleague, Mr. Kristoffer Skau, who carried out the Abaqus analy-
sis for the rotational stiffness of the Troll platform.
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