Accounting for Soil Spatial Variability in Plate Anchor Design
This article has been corrected.
VIEW CORRECTIONPublication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 148, Issue 2
Abstract
The effect of soil spatial variability on the undrained vertical uplift capacity of plate anchors has been examined using the three-dimensional random finite-element approach. Multiple direct Monte Carlo simulations (MCS) were performed to quantify statistically how the anchor uplift capacity varied for variable soil conditions. This allowed examination of the effect of the magnitude of the coefficient of variation (COV) of the undrained soil strength and the spatial correlation scales of these variations on the capacity statistics. Based on the direct MCS results, subset simulations (SS) were then performed to examine how deterministic design approaches would fare in terms of achieved anchor reliability. It was shown that standard approaches could lead to overconservative anchor design, particularly when the scale of fluctuation was small. Finally, a design framework is suggested to achieve the target probability of failure, whereby the characteristic strength profile is selected based on the particular statistics of the site data compared to the anchor size.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, and code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the funding support provided by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency under project ARENA-2015-RND086. The work presented in this paper is part of the research activities undertaken by the Center for Offshore Foundation Systems within the Oceans Graduate School at the University of Western Australia. The second author holds the Fugro Chair, whose support is gratefully acknowledged.
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Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 148 • Issue 2 • February 2022
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© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Nov 16, 2020
Accepted: Sep 21, 2021
Published online: Nov 24, 2021
Published in print: Feb 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Apr 24, 2022
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