Development of Deep Foundation Design for the Offshore Environment

Onshore pile capacity is often determined by means of a static load test, but this is too expensive for offshore piles because of the environment and high loads required. McClelland, et al. (1969) presented criteria for clay and sand that was incorporated in the API Recommended Practice for "Planning, Designing and Constructing Fixed Offshore Platforms" the same year. The evolution of methods used to compute the unit skin friction and unit end bearing for deep foundations in the offshore environment is presented. Recent developments, including using cone penetrometer test (CPT)-based methods for predicting axial pile capacity in sands and revised metocean design criteria, and remedial measures, are discussed.