ABSTRACT
The life cycle of a jack-up spudcan foundation consists of installation, operations and extraction. A proper simulation of the continuous installation process to capture the stress state of the soil can help provide a better understanding of spudcan-soil interaction response during the subsequent operational stage. This paper presents the application of the Press-Replace Method (PRM) to simulate (i) the continuous installation of a jack-up spudcan foundation into a single layer seabed using an undrained effective stress analysis and (ii) its post-installation consolidation behaviour during the operational stage. The simulated penetration resistance and excess pore pressures generated during the installation stage, and their subsequent pore pressure dissipation during the operational stage, are validated through comparisons with published data. In general, the PRM is able to replicate experimental observations quite well. A significant advantage of this technique is that it allows a better-integrated analysis of the spudcan-soil interaction mechanism incorporating both the undrained response during the installation process and the consolidation response during the operational phase. With the PRM, the use of an additional computer script to map the stress state at the end of installation stage to a separate file for consolidation analysis, which may be necessary for some techniques, is no longer needed. Therefore, a dual stage analysis can be effectively simplified to a one-step analysis with minimum user intervention.
