Modelling Screwpile Installation Using the MPM

TY - JOUR

T1 - Modelling Screwpile Installation Using the MPM

AU - Wang, Lei

AU - Coombs, William M.

AU - Augarde, Charles E.

AU - Brown, Michael

AU - Knappett, Jonathan

AU - Brennan, Andrew

AU - Richards, David

AU - Blake, Anthony

N1 - We are grateful for the support by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council grant (No. EP/N006054/1)

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - Screwpiles are, as the name suggests, piled foundations which are screwed into the ground. They provide restraint to both upwards and downward loading directions and are commonly used for light structures subject to overturning or wind loading, such as sign gantries at the sides of motorways. An EPSRC-funded project led by University of Dundee has recently started, with Durham and Southampton as partners, in which the use of screwpiles (individual or in groups) for offshore foundations is under investigation. At Durham, a numerical modelling framework based on the material point method (MPM) is being developed for the installation phase of a screwpile. The aim is to use the model to provide an accurate representation of the in situ ground conditions once the pile is installed, as during installation the ground is disturbed and any model that "wishes in place" a screwpile may not provide representative long-term performance predictions. Following modelling of installation, the soil state will be transferred to a standard finite element package for the subsequent modelling of in-service performance (the MPM being considered unnecessary and computationally expensive for this phase of the life of a screwpile). In this preliminary work, we present the development of features of this numerical tool to simulate the screwpile installation. These features include a moving mesh concept (both translation and rotation) and interface elements. The effectiveness of the algorithm is illustrated through simple examples.

AB - Screwpiles are, as the name suggests, piled foundations which are screwed into the ground. They provide restraint to both upwards and downward loading directions and are commonly used for light structures subject to overturning or wind loading, such as sign gantries at the sides of motorways. An EPSRC-funded project led by University of Dundee has recently started, with Durham and Southampton as partners, in which the use of screwpiles (individual or in groups) for offshore foundations is under investigation. At Durham, a numerical modelling framework based on the material point method (MPM) is being developed for the installation phase of a screwpile. The aim is to use the model to provide an accurate representation of the in situ ground conditions once the pile is installed, as during installation the ground is disturbed and any model that "wishes in place" a screwpile may not provide representative long-term performance predictions. Following modelling of installation, the soil state will be transferred to a standard finite element package for the subsequent modelling of in-service performance (the MPM being considered unnecessary and computationally expensive for this phase of the life of a screwpile). In this preliminary work, we present the development of features of this numerical tool to simulate the screwpile installation. These features include a moving mesh concept (both translation and rotation) and interface elements. The effectiveness of the algorithm is illustrated through simple examples.

KW - Elasto-plastic interface element

KW - Implicit MPM

KW - Implicit stress integration

KW - Moving mesh

KW - Penetration problem

KW - Screwpile

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85014717159

U2 - 10.1016/j.proeng.2017.01.040

DO - 10.1016/j.proeng.2017.01.040

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85014717159

VL - 175

SP - 124

EP - 132

JO - Procedia Engineering

JF - Procedia Engineering

ER -