Large Deformation Finite Element Analysis of Gravity Installed Anchors in Clay

The OMNI-Max anchor is a multi-directional, self-inserting, gravity-installed anchor and used as foundation for mooring deep water offshore facilities, including risers and floating structures. The OMNI-Max anchor offers a cost effective anchoring solution with improved reliability in the mooring system. Pullout capacity and keying behavior are two important issues in the design of the OMNI-Max anchor. In this paper, the pullout capacity and the keying process of a vertically installed OMNI-Max anchor embedded in normally consolidated clay were simulated using three dimensional large deformation finite element analysis. In these numerical analyses, 10-node tetrahedral elements were used to predict the collapse loads of undrained geotechnical problems involving material incompressibility. Nodal joint elements were used to simulate the interaction between the anchor and soil. The effect of the loading angle on the keying behavior of the OMNI-Max anchor was considered. The analyses clearly show the two important processes (1) “keying”: the anchor rotates rapidly until reaching the best bearing capacity position; (2) “diving”: the anchor mainly translates with tiny rotation. It agrees well with the keying and diving phenomenon in published model test results.