Topic: Whole Life Geotechnical Design of Offshore Infrastructure: Tracking a Moving Target
Speaker:Prof. David White, University of Southampton
Time：15:00-17:00, 2021.05.15
Place：Zoom Meeting https://zoom.com.cn/j/63893209268（ID：638 932 09268, Code：411998）
Introduction
Whole Life Geotechnical Design of Offshore Infrastructure: Tracking a Moving Target
This Zeng Guo-Xi Lecture addresses the geotechnical design of offshore infrastructure, which is an essential element of our energy system and our communication networks. For example, the UK and China are committed to huge expansions of our offshore wind industries, to mitigate climate change. Meanwhile virtually all international internet traffic passes through submarine cables.
The offshore environment is dynamic, both in the ocean and at the seabed. The seabed properties and local bathymetry can change through the life of infrastructure, from installation, through operation, to decommissioning. This adds complexity, but also opportunity, to the design of cables, pipelines, foundations and anchoring systems.
Whole life design incorporates these processes into the analysis of limit states, allowing the beneficial effects to be harnessed, and the detrimental effects to be accommodated without over-conservatism. This lecture will illustrate a series of case studies that include:
Pipelines and their anchoring systems, with whole life changes in seabed friction
Cables and pipelines, with whole life changes in local bathymetry from scour and burial
Foundations and anchoring systems, with whole life changes in soil strength
Novel site investigation devices, that simulate whole life processes in situ
Changes in strength, stiffness and exposure to loading by factors of two, three or more will be shown. Techniques to capture this behaviour in design, using both simple and complex types of analysis, will be outlined.
Whole life design provides a holistic perspective for engineers who plan and maintain the infrastructure that we place in the ocean. This lecture, as well as providing forward-looking geotechnical analysis methods, also highlights our responsibility for the ocean environment throughout and beyond the whole life of the infrastructure we place there.
