G-PFEM: an open access numerical tool for the simulation of spudcan penetration in clays

Penetration depth of Spudcan foundations for offshore mobile Jack-up rigs is typically predicted by considering a wished-in-place foundation at different depths and following traditional bearing capacity approaches. However, the large penetration depths involved, stress redistributions and the flow of the material around the spudcan are some example of features which make the wished-in-place assumption quite unrealistic. This paper presents an open access application package developed to simulate and hence predict load penetration curves of spudcan installation in multi-layered clay profiles. The numerical tool adopts the recently developed particle finite element method for geotechnical applications (G-PFEM). The potential of this large strain particle finite element application is demonstrated by simulating field data from the literature. The results show that load-penetration curves obtained using G-PFEM capture more efficiently the field results with respect to other numerical and analytical methods. It is also shown how the G-PFEM automatically captures cavity infill. In the paper the computational cost for the simulation of penetration up to 40m on a standard desktop are shown to be low compared to other commercial software.