Penetration Resistance of Skirt-Tip with Rough Base for Suction Caissons in Clay

Suction caissons can readily penetrate into the seabed under the combination of the self-weight and suction resulted from the encased water being increasingly pumped out. During suction-assisted penetration, the equivalent overburden at the skirt-tip level outside the caisson is generally higher than that inside because the vertical stress within the soil plug is reduced by the exerted suction. This may result in a uniform shear stress developing over the base of the skirt-tip as the soil below the skirt-tip tends to move into the caisson, which leads to an asymmetric failure wedge existing below the base of the skirt-tip. Besides, different adhesion factors along the inside (α1) and outside (αo) of the skirt wall will cause asymmetric plastic zones inside and outside the caisson. Accordingly, an asymmetric failure mechanism is therefore proposed to calculate the penetration resistance of the skirt-tip. The proposed failure mechanism is the first to consider the effect of different adhesion factors (αi) and (αo) on the failure mechanism at the skirt-tip, and involves the contribution from the weighted average of equivalent overburdens inside and outside caisson at the skirt-tip level. The required suction pressure can be obtained in terms of force equilibrium of the caisson in a vertical direction. Finally, the asymmetric failure mechanism at the skirt-tip is validated with the FE calculations. By comparing with the measured data, the predictions of the required suction pressure are found to be in good agreement with the experimental results.