Study on ALE Method for Simulating Spudcan Penetrating Near Piles

Jack-up rigs are often employed in close proximity to piled platforms, therefore the penetration process of spudcan may have a certain effect on the deformation and bearing capacity of adjacent piles. Firstly, the feasibility of using explicit dynamics algorithm to calculate the bearing capacity of pile is verified in this paper. The optimal result of this algorithm is compared with the results of static implicit algorithm and API specification. Secondly, Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eularian (ALE) adaptive meshing is used to study the penetration process of spudcan. The effects of soil strength, ALE boundary size, mesh size and soil elastic-modulus on calculation results of penetration depth studied in this paper are to determine the optimal numerical scheme. Based on the above analysis, the effect of spudcan penetration on the bearing capacity of adjacent piles with different clearances and its law are under research by using the optimal numerical scheme. The simulation results showing computation efficiency and accuracy can be improved by using this numerical scheme, in which the amount of pile radial mesh is 8, the amount of pile peripheral mesh is 4 and the load speed is 0.1m/s. The spudcan penetration leads to the increment of bearing capacity and this effect reduces with the increment of edge-to-edge clearance between spudcan and pile.