Tensile capacity of offshore bucket foundations in clay

Abstract Depending on the applications, offshore bucket foundations may be subjected to tensile loads. Mobilised soil resistance needs to resist the loads over the operation life of a project, or to be minimised if removal is required at decommission. The tensile capacity of the offshore bucket foundations is a function of the foundation geometry, the rate of pullout relative to the soil drainage condition and the post-installation consolidation owing to self-weight and the additional ballast. Finite-element method is employed to investigate the tensile capacity of the bucket foundations. A unique expression is established to describe the normalised tensile capacity as a function of length-to-diameter aspect ratio and the normalised loading velocity with consideration of the preloading and consolidation. An example application assisting the routine design of the engineers is included to demonstrate the procedure for calculating tensile capacity using the numerical results derived from current study.