Parametric study on the effects of pile inclination angle on the response of batter piles in offshore jacket platforms

Abstract

Offshore jacket-type platforms are attached to the seabed by long batter piles. In this paper, results from a finite element analysis, verified against experimental data, are used to study the effect of the pile’s inclination angle, and its interaction with the geometrical properties of the pile and the geotechnical characteristics of the surrounding soil on the behavior of the inclined piles supporting the jacket platforms. Results show that the inclination angle is one of the main parameters affecting the behavior of an offshore pile. We investigated the effect of the inclination angle on the maximum von Mises stress, maximum von Mises elastic strain, maximum displacement vector sum, maximum displacement in the horizontal direction, and maximum displacement in the vertical direction. The pile seems to have an operationally optimal degree of inclination of approximately 5°. By exceeding this value, the instability in the surrounding soil under applied loads grows extensively in all the geotechnical properties considered. Cohesive soils tend to display poorer results compared to grained soils.

Keywords

pile / inclination angle / finite element analysis / offshore jacket platform / pile-soil interaction / settlement / offshore piles