White Etal 2005 ISFOG Mudmats

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An investigation into the vertical bearing capacity of perforated


mudmats

Article · August 2005


DOI: 10.1201/NOE0415390637.ch47

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Frontiers in Offshore Geotechnics: ISFOG 2005 – Gourvenec & Cassidy (eds)
© 2005 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 0 415 39063 X

An investigation into the vertical bearing capacity of perforated mudmats

D.J. White
Cambridge University Engineering Department, UK

A.J. Maconochie
Technip Offshore UK Ltd, Aberdeen, UK

C.Y. Cheuk & M.D. Bolton


Cambridge University Engineering Department, UK

D. Joray & S.M. Springman


Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich, Switzerland

ABSTRACT: The optimal design of a mudmat foundation for a seabed structure maximizes the ratio of ver-
tical compression to pullout capacity, which can be achieved by adding perforations. This paper describes an
investigation led by Technip in which solid and perforated mudmats were installed into soft clay. The installa-
tion load of the solid mudmats matched the theoretical bearing capacity. Perforations reduced the installation
load in proportion to the perforated area. In heterogeneous conditions, a further change in installation load arose
due to the shallower failure mechanism. Peak pullout resistance was governed by separation beneath the mud-
mat, and depended on the width of the grillage elements formed by the perforation.

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Mudmat foundations


This paper describes an investigation into the vertical
bearing capacity of mudmat foundations. The term
‘mudmat’ describes pre-fabricated shallow founda-
tions made from steel. Mudmats provide temporary
support to jacket structures prior to piling, and are used
to support seabed structures such as pipeline mani-
folds and well completions (Fig. 1).
Mudmat foundations for seabed structures are typ-
ically an integral part of the structure and are fabri-
cated from steel plates reinforced by a grillage. This
type of integral foundation is favoured for deep water
frontiers since installation of the subsea structure can
be completed in a single operation. This investigation
is concerned with the design of mudmat foundations
on soft clay soils as are found in many deep water
regions currently under development.
The load on a seabed structure comprises the sub- Figure 1. Subsea intervention valve protection structure
merged self-weight in addition to small horizontal with mudmat foundation (Fisher & Cathie 2003).
forces due to seabed currents and any loads applied
by the connected equipment, for example due to ther- Removal and reuse of the seabed structure is desir-
mal expansion of pipelines. In shallow waters, loads able. During decommissioning, the structure is removed
from trawlgear are also considered. A typical mudmat using a crane; pullout resistance should be reduced to
is 5 metres square in plan. ease this process.

459
Mudmat foundations are therefore required to sup- this paper, su0 is defined as the strength at the founda-
port primarily downward-acting loads and have min- tion level, (depth h below mudline) so su0 increases
imal pullout capacity. Skirts are rarely used, unless with penetration.
unusually high horizontal loads are present. The influence of vertical heterogeneity can be cap-
tured by defining N*c as a modified bearing capacity
factor to be applied to su0 (Equation 2). N*c therefore
1.2 Perforation exceeds the equivalent homogenous value due to the
One method of reducing the uplift capacity of a mud- added strength available at depth.
mat is to introduce perforations. Instead of a solid
cross-section, a perforated mudmat comprises a grill- (2)
age with steel plates covering some of the cells.
Perforations offer two further benefits. Firstly, the The modified N*c is a function of the dimensionless
weight of the structure (and cost of material) is reduced, vertical strength gradient kD/su0 (for circles of diam-
allowing easier handling by a smaller crane. Secondly, eter D) or kB/su0 (for strips of breadth B). Exact plas-
the structure is less influenced by hydrodynamic forces ticity solutions for N*c for strip and circular
during deployment, since waves and currents can pass foundations have been derived using numerical meth-
through the perforations. ods by Davis & Booker (1973) and Salençon & Matar
(1982) and have been replicated for this paper using
freely-available method of characteristics software
1.3 Vertical bearing capacity of mudmats (Martin 2003). The effect of dimensionless strength
1.3.1 Effect of shape heterogeneity on bearing capacity can be illustrated
Design methods for the vertical bearing capacity of a either by the variation in N*c or instead by the change
perforated mudmat on clay are based on fundamental in dimensionless effective depth, zeff /D (or zeff /B) for
solutions derived using classical plasticity. The short which the unmodified bearing capacity factor Nc
term bearing capacity of clay, qmax, (minus the sub- applies (Equation 1). Prior to the availability of mod-
merged weight of overburden at the embedded foun- ern plasticity solutions for N*c, it was more common
dation depth, h) is the undrained shear strength, su, to consider this effective depth at which an ‘operative’
times a bearing capacity factor Nc: soil strength is chosen, and applied to Equation 1.
Figure 2 shows the increase in N*c with heterogen-
(1) eity, and corresponding decrease in effective depth.
The shallower failure mechanism below a circular
The exact bearing capacity factor, Nc, of an infinite foundation leads to a 50% shallower effective depth.
strip footing on Tresca soil is the Prandtl solution Skempton (1951) suggested that if the strength did
(Nc,strip  2    5.14) whilst for a rough circle the not vary by more than 50% of the average value
exact solution is Nc,circle  6.05 (Cox et al. 1961). No within a depth of 2/3B, the mean value over this range
exact solution exists for a square footing, but finite
element limit analyses bracket the true solution between
5.52 and 6.22 (Salgado et al. 2004). Conventional
finite element analysis indicates a value of Nc,square/
Nc,strip  1.15 (Gourvenec et al. 2005).
In light of these recent solutions, the shape factor
Nc,square/Nc,strip  1.2 (Skempton 1951) applied by
many design codes to the Prandtl solution, leading to
Nc,square  6.17, is slightly optimistic. Instead, these
newer results for square foundations indicate that the
change in geometry from an infinite strip to a square
could increase the bearing capacity by only 15%.

1.3.2 Effect of vertical strength heterogeneity


Most soft seabed clays show increasing undrained
shear strength with depth from a value at the mudline
in the range 2–10 kPa. The strength usually increases
linearly; a gradient, k, of 1–2 kPa/m is typical
(Randolph 2004). For a square mudmat foundation of
width W  5 m, these values correspond to a dimen- Figure 2. Effect of strength heterogeneity on bearing
sionless strength gradient, kW/su0, of 0.5–5. Throughout capacity.

460
should be used in Equation 1. For linear vertical het- conducted in a large-scale test tank (plan dimensions
erogeneity, this approach corresponds to zeff /D  0.33 4500 1250 mm) located at the Schofield Centre,
for kD/su0  3. The lower bound solutions in Figure 2 Cambridge University Engineering Department. The
indicate that this assumption is appropriate for strip tank is equipped with bottom drainage and the lower
foundations in slightly heterogeneous conditions, but is 600 mm is filled with a gravel layer. Two layers of
at least two times deeper than is appropriate for circular geotextile were placed above the gravel to prevent
foundations, and presumably also for square mudmats. escape of the test soil.

1.3.3 Effect of embedment


The embedment, h, of a mudmat leads to an increase 2.2 The clay bed
in vertical bearing capacity because of a) the add- A bed of soft natural clay, sampled from the seabed
itional overburden stress acting at the foundation (depth 0–1 m) in 700 m of water in the Gulf of
level, h, (Equation 1) and b) the additional shearing Guinea, was prepared by vacuum consolidation from
above the foundation level required for penetration, slurry. The properties of the clay, as measured during
which increases the bearing capacity factor Nc. For the field investigation are shown in Table 1.
uniform clay, lower bound solutions for an embedded A partial vacuum was applied to drainage layers
circular footing by Martin (2001) indicate a 30% above and below the clay slurry. This created consoli-
increase in Nc for h/D  0.5 compared to a surface dation in a similar manner to an oedometer with two-
footing. These analyses use the smooth sides of the way drainage. Instead of applying an increase in total
foundation to support the overlying soil. However, stress, a decrease in pore pressure is imposed, whilst
large strain finite element analyses by Hossain et al. the total stress remains atmospheric. The depth of
(2005) indicate a similar increase in Nc for spudcans, clay after consolidation was 300 mm. A freeboard of
which have an open cavity above. water was maintained above the clay throughout the
test programme.
1.3.4 Effect of perforations A site investigation was conducted to establish the
If perforations are introduced to a mudmat founda- strength profile and compare the reconsolidated mois-
tion, the net area over which bearing resistance can be ture content to the field conditions. A laboratory T-bar
mobilized is reduced. Figure 2 illustrates a further (diameter 12 mm, length 100 mm, penetration rate
weakening effect of perforating a mudmat foundation. 2 mm/s) and a motorized vane penetrometer (diam-
The strength gradient range described earlier as typ- eter 33 mm, length 50 mm, rotation speed 13°/s) were
ical for mudmat foundations (kW/su0  1–5) spans a used to measure strength. Moisture content was meas-
doubling of N*c (assuming the circular solutions are ured from tube samples.
permissible for a square). However, if perforations are
introduced to a mudmat, the foundation may respond
as a grillage of independent strip foundations of width 2.3 The experimental programme
B, where B is only a fraction of W. If a 5 m square
Square model mudmats (width, W  125 mm) were
mudmat on the typical soil profile described earlier is
fabricated from aluminium alloy plate of thickness
perforated into 3 strips of width 1 m, the dimension-
4.8 mm and perforated with square or circular holes
less strength gradient, kB/su0 is 0.25–1. Within this
(Table 2, Fig. 3). The perforated mudmats are charac-
range, N*c (for a strip) reaches only 10% more than the
terised by the width (or diameter) of perforation, P,
homogenous solution for a circle. Therefore, the doub-
the resulting effective strip width, B*, defined as the
ling in capacity of a solid mudmat created by hetero-
width of the resulting grillage, and the perforation
geneity is lost.
ratio, R, which is the perforated fraction of the gross
For design, this detrimental reduction in downward
vertical bearing capacity created by perforation must
be weighed against the beneficial reduction in pullout
resistance. This paper describes an experimental Table 1. Soil properties: soft seabed clay from Gulf of
investigation into the influence of perforation on ver- Guinea.
tical compression and pullout capacity.
Soil property Value

In situ moisture content 150–200%


2 METHODOLOGY In situ bulk unit weight 12.5 kN/m3
Peak vane shear strength 1–3 kPa
2.1 The test tank Liquid limit 175%
Plastic limit 80%
The investigation was commissioned by Technip to Plastic index 95%
aid the design of perforated mudmats, and was

461
Table 2. Test programme and mudmat dimensions.

Width Perforation Effective strip Perforation


Test W, mm P, mm B*, mm ratio R

1 125 – – 0
2 125 25 50 0.04
3 125 50 37.5 0.16
4 125 75 25 0.36
5 125 25 25 0.16
6 125 25 12.5 0.36
7 125 12.5 15 0.16
8 125 18.75 10 0.36
9 100 – – 0
10 75 – – 0
11* 125 84.6 66.3 0.36
12 125 – – 0
13 125 – – 0
14 200 – – 0
15* 200 135.4 106.1 0.36 Figure 4. Results of test bed characterisation.

* Circular perforation. B* is mean of mid-side & corner


values. 3.2 T-bar and vane shear tests

Installation and extraction at slower rate: 0.2 mm/s.
Twelve T-bar tests were conducted around the tank
prior to testing. The penetration and extraction resist-
ance has been converted to su using a T-bar factor of
10.5 (Randolph & Houlsby 1984).
The scatter between the twelve T-bar profiles indi-
cates some lateral heterogeneity (Fig. 4). Backanalysis
of the mudmat tests has been carried out using the
mean of the two nearest T-bar profiles.
The top 50 mm shows a strong crust, with the T-bar
strength reaching 0.7 kPa, before returning to 0.5 kPa,
Figure 3. Mudmat shapes.
then increasing with depth. This strength nonlinearity
prevents simple correction of the measured bearing
capacity for vertical heterogeneity; no appropriate
value of kD/suo can be chosen.
area. Additional larger and smaller mudmats were Figure 4 also shows the mean T-bar extraction resist-
used to investigate the effect of size. ance. The ratio of penetration to extraction resistance
Each mudmat was installed vertically at a velocity decreases with depth from 2 to 1. The soil did not
of 2 mm/s (usually to a depth of 0.4 W), held at this posi- close around the back of the T-bar during the first few
tion for one hour, then extracted at 2 mm/s. The applied diameters of penetration. Therefore, the resistance
load and displacement were recorded throughout. ratio at shallow depths is may reflect the clay softening
A pore pressure transducer (PPT) was fitted in the when exposed to free water rather than a drop from
centre of the mudmat in test 13. peak to remoulded strength.
Thirteen vane shear tests were conducted around
the tank at 4 depths. The average back-analysed peak
3 RESULTS: TEST BED and residual vane strengths at each depth are shown
CHARACTERISATION on Figure 4. The peak vane strengths lie close to the
T-bar extraction strength, perhaps reflecting distur-
3.1 Moisture content bance during vane insertion (Randolph 2004).
Samples taken before and after the one month test
period were oven-dried to identify the moisture con-
4 RESULTS: MUDMAT FOUNDATIONS
tent profile (Fig. 4). The moisture contents reflected
the in situ values (Table 1), and were above the liquid
4.1 Installation of solid mudmats
limit. Swelling is evident over the test period, sug-
gesting that negative pore pressure from consolida- Tests 1 and 13 represent the base case of a solid square
tion was not equilibrated when testing started. mudmat and allow the repeatability of the testing to

462
Figure 6. Measured and predicted Nc for solid mudmats.

with increasing mudmat width (Fig. 6). This trend


could be attributed to progressive failure as the soil
softens from peak to residual strength along the
longer failure planes of the larger mudmats. However,
Figure 5. Installation and pullout resistance of solid mudmat. the small mudmats reach peak Nc at a higher embed-
ment, for which a higher value of Nc applies.
The experimental values of peak Nc and theoretical
be examined. A PPT mounted in the centre of the values accounting for embedment (Fig. 6) have a
mudmat during test 13 revealed the pore water pres- mean discrepancy of 4%, which shows no clear trend
sure at the interface. The penetration and extraction with mudmat size. The greatest uncertainty in this
resistance, q, is shown in Figure 5. Throughout this comparison is the back-calculated strength profile and
paper, q, is expressed as the applied vertical force, V, selection of an effective depth. The possible discrep-
divided by the gross mudmat area (W2), irrespective ancies due to the use of Nc,circle instead of Nc,square or
of any perforation. under-prediction of the overburden due to surface
The close agreement between the installation resist- heave are less significant.
ance during tests 1 and 13 indicates excellent repeat-
ability. The PPT used during test 13 follows the profile
4.2 Installation of perforated mudmats
of bearing pressure, although recording a lower value.
Since the effective stress is zero at the mudline, the PPT Without arching of the applied load across the perfor-
would equal the bearing pressure if the load was dis- ations, a linear decrease in peak Nc with perforation
tributed uniformly across the mudmat base. However, ratio, R (as defined in Section 2.3), would occur in
these lower values of pore pressure recorded at the uniform clay, where Nc is calculated based on the
centre of the mudmat reflect the theoretical elastic gross mudmat area, W2 (ignoring the minor effect of
distribution of load under a rigid footing, which is shape on Nc). However, the measured peak Nc values
concentrated around the edge. (calculated using su at 0.18 W) exceed this linear
Normalisation of q by su is hampered by the het- trend (Fig. 7a) due to the strength heterogeneity.
erogeneous strength profile. The strength at a depth The strong crust in the test tank led to a higher
of 0.18 W below the mudmat has been used to calculate operative strength during installation of the perfor-
Nc, after correction for the overburden (Equation 1). ated mudmats, since the failure mechanism was shal-
This value was chosen since it is the theoretical effect- lower. For this unusual strength profile, the higher
ive depth for circular footings in gently heteroge- effective su balanced the reduced solid area, leading
neous conditions (Fig. 2). The resulting profiles of Nc to peak Nc values in tests 3, 5 and 7 that are compar-
for tests 1 and 13 vary by only 10% between embed- able to the solid tests (based on su at 0.18 W).
ments of 10 and 50 mm, during which su0 varies from This influence of strength heterogeneity can be
0.38 to 0.65 kPa. Theoretically, Nc should increase by accounted for by approximating the effective depth
20% due to the increasing embedment, whilst con- below a perforated mudmat as 0.18B* instead of
currently the operative strength drops from peak to 0.18 W. The resulting values of peak Nc lie close to
remoulded as the soil softens. the linear reduction with R as predicted if arching and
The peak values of Nc for the five solid mudmat shape effects are ignored (Fig. 7b). The profile of
tests show a slight size effect of decreasing capacity decreasing Nc with depth is anchored at Nc  7 for

463
Figure 8. Peak pullout Nc.

Figure 7. Peak Nc vs. perforation ratio, R. mudmats did not reach the steady value evident in
Figure 5 prior to the crack opening and separation
being observed.
R  0, as this is the average for the solid 125 mm The peak Nc during pullout is calculated using an
mudmats. effective depth of 0.18B* (as previously for installa-
The linear variation in peak Nc shown on Figure 7b tion, Fig. 7b), but with the opposite sign used for the
leads to a mean over-prediction of the perforated peak overburden correction in Equation 1. This modification
Nc values by 8%. This discrepancy could be attributed arises because the overburden acts to reduce, rather
to the 10–15% difference between Nc,square and Nc,strip, than enhance, the pullout resistance. These peak val-
since a strip failure mechanism is more appropriate ues of Nc are lower than recorded during installation
along a grillage of a highly perforated mudmat. (Fig. 8a). The lower Nc cannot be wholly due to the
However, this transition to a strip mechanism would remoulded (instead of peak) strength acting during
also cause an increase in effective depth (Fig. 2). An extraction; this effect would reduce the resistance by
additional modification to Nc would be difficult to a constant fraction, and Nc would remain proportional
verify due to the heterogeneous test bed. to R. Instead, peak pullout Nc vs. R shows wide scat-
ter and no trend (Fig. 8a).
The peak pullout resistance is limited by separ-
4.3 Extraction of mudmats ation. Therefore, it is appropriate to plot peak pullout
The uplift resistance of each mudmat showed a sudden Nc against the effective strip width, B*, which is
reduction from the maximum value to almost zero, equal to twice the distance that a crack must open in
coincident with separation of the clay from beneath order for full separation to occur (Fig. 8b). This com-
the mudmat (Fig. 5). The matching profiles of bearing parison shows less scatter than Figure 8a. The mud-
pressure and pore pressure during pullout show that the mats with thinner grillage sections (i.e. lower B*)
uplift resistance is sustained by negative pore pressure offer reduced pullout resistance.
at the mudmat-soil interface until a water-filled crack In prototype conditions, consolidation during the
opens beneath the mudmat, eliminating the excess life of the structure could increase the strength of the
pore pressure. The pullout resistance of the perforated underlying soil, raising the uplift resistance.

464
5 CONCLUSIONS REFERENCES

Small-scale tests to examine the vertical response of Cox A.D., Eason G. & Hopkins H.G. 1961. Axially symmet-
mudmats on soft seabed clay have been conducted. ric plastic deformation in soils. Proc. R. Soc. London
The installation resistance of solid mudmats agreed 254:1–45.
with theoretical bearing capacity solutions. Perforation Davis E.H. & Booker J.R. 1973. The effect of increasing
of a mudmat changed the response by: strength with depth on the bearing capacity of clays.
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• reducing installation resistance in proportion to the Fisher R. & Cathie D. 2003. Optimisation of gravity based
perforated area, design for subsea applications. Proc. ICOF, Dundee.
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suggest that the optimal arrangement of perforation Conf. on Site Investigation, Porto. 209–232.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Building Research Congress 1:180–189.

This investigation was funded by Technip. Technical


support was provided by Chris Collison.

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