Enhanced anchoring systems for MRE` infrastructure: ‘whole life’ soil-anchor-floating system interactions

Kwa, Katherine A. and White, David J. (2021) Enhanced anchoring systems for MRE` infrastructure: ‘whole life’ soil-anchor-floating system interactions. In Proc. European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference. 2219-1-2219-10 .

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Future MRE facilities will involve arrays of MRE devices that connect and will transmit loads to the seafloor via mooring and anchoring systems. It is essential to have a reliable estimation of the capacity that the anchor can provide for the variety of loads that are transmitted via the mooring lines to the anchoring system. In soft soils, this capacity can evolve with time due to the sustained loads and variable components of the cyclic uplift loads, which vary due to sea state, season, and the operational requirements of the connected MRE system. This study presents and discusses ‘hidden’ anchor capacity enhancements from modelling beneficial effects including (i) ‘whole-life’ changing seabed soil strength, (ii) viscous soil strength and (iii) added soil mass effects, which are absent in conventional geotechnical foundation design. It will show how these effects can be integrated into a coupled anchormooring model which provides a new basis for assessing through-life changes in geotechnical anchor capacity and enables a better understanding of the fully coupled soilanchoring- mooring behaviour of MRE infrastructure over its operational lifetime.

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Published date: 5 September 2021

Additional Information: Funding Information: The authors acknowledge support from the EPSRC Supergen ORE Hub (Grant EPSRC EP/S000747/1), the Royal Academy of Engineering Chair for Emerging Technologies in Intelligent and Resilient Ocean Engineering, and from the Supergen ORE Hub Early Career Researcher Research Funds (Project title: Development of an integrated anchor model via industry engagement). The authors are also very grateful to Mr Tom Tosdevin, Dr Siya Jin and Professor Deborah Greaves for their assistance with generating the anchor loads for the XMED buoy and sharing their hindcast sea-state Wave Hub data collections. Funding Information: Paper Number: 2219 This work was supported in part by the EPSRC Offshore Renewable Energy Supergen Hub (Grant EPSRC EP/S000747/1) and the Royal Academy of Engineering Chair for Emerging Technologies in Intelligent and Resilient Ocean Engineering. *Infrastructure Group, School of Civil Maritime Engineering and Environment, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, The University of Southampton, Boldrewood Innovation Campus, Publisher Copyright: © European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference 2021. Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

Venue - Dates: 14th European Wave and Tidal Energy Conference, EWTEC 2021, , Virtual, Online, 2021-09-05 - 2021-09-09

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