• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.39 no.12
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• pp.61-73
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• 2023

Suction buckets are feasible options for offshore foundations to support subsea structures in deep water, enabling suction-induced installation by pumps. Recently, hybrid suction bucket foundations that combine single or multiple suction buckets with a mat foundation have been considered. The foundations effectively increase the load capacity while reducing construction costs. However, there is still insufficient experimental validation of hybrid suction bucket foundations regarding their bearing capacity. Furthermore, research on the horizontal load capacity under low vertical and moment loads is inadequate. In this study, we investigate the feasibility of using a hybrid suction bucket foundation for subsea installations in clay. We considered two types of hybrid suction bucket foundations: a circular mat with a single suction bucket and a square mat with multiple buckets. Centrifuge tests were performed to understand the hybrid suction bucket foundation characteristics under horizontal loads and their corresponding bearing capacity. Particularly, we verified the effect of the mat foundation and bucket embedment depth on the horizontal bearing mechanism and capacities. Results confirmed that the hybrid suction bucket foundation outperforms the single suction bucket.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.32 no.12
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• pp.69-78
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• 2016

A suction bucket foundation has been considered to be a potential foundation type for offshore wind turbines. A suction bucket foundation is usually installed in soft soil, so the accumulated displacement of the foundation may occur under long-term cyclic loads. In this study, a series of 1-g model tests were performed to analyze the accumulated rotation of suction bucket foundations under long-term cyclic horizontal loads. The dry model ground was prepared to have two different soil densities by air-pluviation method. The model tests were performed varying the embedment depth of the suction bucket, the soil density, and the amplitude of cyclic load. A one-way horizontal cyclic load was applied over $10^4$ cycles. Test results showed that the accumulated rotation of the suction bucket foundation increased with the increase in the number of cycles and load magnitudes. Based on the model test results, a new equation was proposed to evaluate the accumulated rotation of the suction bucket foundations in dry sandy ground under long-term cyclic horizontal loads.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.75-83
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• 2014

Suction bucket foundation is installed with the differential pressure created by pumping water out of bucket. Bucket foundation has usually been utilized in mooring anchor for offshore platform or floating oil and gas production facilities in the open sea. After suction bucket foundation successfully was applied as the foundation for offshore wind turbines in Europe, it recently attracts much attention in Korea, too. To estimate the penetration resistance of the suction bucket foundation is one of the important matters that should be considered during its installation. This study carried out a series of model tests to investigate the penetration resistance of suction bucket foundation. And the mobilized soil strength factor was reviewed through comparing the experimental results by two installation ways (e.g., push-in-load and suction) and the results calculated by the conventional equation.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.161-168
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• 2018

This paper presents the design procedure of the suction bucket used to support a subsea manifold. The soil-suction bucket interaction numerical analysis technique was verified by comparing the present results with a reference data. In order to simulate the soil-bucket interaction analyses of a subsea manifold structure, various material data such as undrained shear strength, elastic modulus, and poisson ratio of soft clay in Gulf of Mexico were collected from reference survey. We proposed vertical and horizontal design loads based on system weights and current-induced drag forces. Under the assumption that diameter of the suction bucket was 3.0 m considering real dimension of the subsea manifold frame structures, aspect ratio was decided to be 3.0 based on reference survey. The ultimate bearing load components were determined using tangent intersection method. It was proved that the two design load components were less than ultimate bearing loads.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.31-36
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• 2022

This paper presents the measuring process of dynamic properties of offshore wind power foundation and provides consideration of each step. This Guideline enables to maintain consistent measuring procedure and therefore increase the reliability of test results. Small scaled suction bucket foundation was fabricated to represent the commercial support structure installation mechanism and two cases(free-free, free-fixed) of dynamic tests were performed at workshop. From the tests, the importance of dynamic properties of connection part between suction bucket and tower was figured out. More over, types and configuration of measuring devices are recommended which can help find the natural frequency of wind turbine foundation correctly. In field test, it was found that the natural frequency of suction bucket foundation was increased linearly with the penetration depth due to the confining effect of ambient soil. Meanwhile, it was not easy to get an enough excitation force with normal impact hammer because the N.F of suction bucket model was in the lower range of 0 Hz ~ 5 Hz. Therefore, new excitation method which has enough force and can excite lower frequency range was devised. This study will help develop safety check procedure of suction bucket foundation in field at each installation stage using the N.F measurement.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09a
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• pp.494-503
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• 2010

This paper reviews research trend in suction bucket foundation. Wind energy farm has been considered as an efficient alternative to fuel energy as world markets attempt to discover renewable resources. Recently, Korean government initiated the research projects investigating installation method of offshore wind energy foundation and design guideline as well as verifying feasibility of offshore wind farm. In fact, the installation of monopile and gravity type foundation has been sucessfully carried out in European and other advanced countries, and design guideline of those foundations are well established; however, various types of foundation would be necessary in the near future as offshore wind farm demands abundant wind resources in deep sea. In this paper, bucket foundation is spot lighted as a powerful and economic alternative applicable to deep sea condition.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.281-287
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• 2017

In the case of fixed offshore wind turbines, scouring phenomena have been reported around sub-structures as a result of currents, which seriously damage the structural stability. A parametric study of the various sub-structures of a fixed offshore wind turbine was performed to investigate their effects on the scouring phenomena. For a suction bucket foundation and monopile, the effects of the stick-up heights and water depth were studied, respectively. The open source libraries, called OpenFOAM, were used to simulate a violent flow around a foundation. The numerical methods were selected based on a two-dimensional analysis of a suction bucket. Based on the results for various stick-up heights, a larger scouring region was observed with an increase in the stick-up height because of the down-wash flow around a foundation. Based on the results for various monopile water depths, the water depth had an insignificant effect on the scouring.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.27 no.10
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• pp.25-33
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• 2011

Suction buckets have been widely used for offshore structures such as anchors for floating facilities, and the foundations of offshore wind energy turbines. However, the design guidelines for suction buckets have not been clearly suggested. Therefore, this study performed the numerical analysis by using ABAQUS (2010) to evaluate bearing capacities and load-movement behaviors of the suction bucket in NC clay. For the numerical analysis, the depth ratio L/D (L=embedded length of skirt; D=diameter of a bucket) was varied from 0.25 to 1.0. The analysis results showed that the L/D ratio has a significant effect on the bearing capacity, and the vertical and horizontal capacities respectively increased by about 40% and 90%, when L/D ratio increased from 0.25 to 1.0. At the vertical loading, the bucket showed the similar failure mode with a deep foundation, so the shaft and toe resistances can be separately evaluated. At the horizontal loading, the bucket with L/D=O.25 showed the sliding failure mode and the bucket with $L/D{\geq}0.5$ showed the rotational failure mode.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.374-382
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• 2021

The scour risk assessment was conducted for ultimate limit state of newly developed penta pod suction bucket support structures for a 5.5 MW offshore wind turbine. The hazard was found by using an empirical formula for scour depth suitable for considering marine environmental conditions such as significant wave height, significant wave period, and current velocity. The scour fragility curve was calculated by using allowable bearing capacity criteria of suction foundation. The scour risk was assessed by combining the scour hazard and the scour fragility.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.34 no.11
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• pp.21-31
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• 2018

Bucket foundations are widely used in offshore areas due to their various benefits such as easy and fast installations. A bucket is installed using self-weight and the hydraulic pressure difference across the lid generated by pumping out water from inside the bucket. When buckets are installed in high permeable soil such as sands, upward seepage flow occurs around the bucket tip and interior, leading to a decrease in the effective stress in the soil inside the buckets. This process reduces the penetration resistance of buckets. However, the soil inside and outside the bucket can be disturbed due to the upward seepage flow and this can change the soil properties around the bucket. Moreover, upward seepage flow can create significant soil plug heave, thereby hindering the penetration of the bucket to the target depth. Despite of these problems, soil disturbance and soil plug heave created by suction installation are not well understood. This study aims to investigate the behavior of soil during suction installation. To comprehend the phenomena of soil plug heave during installation, a series of small-scale model tests were conducted with different testing conditions. From a series of tests, the effects of tip thickness of bucket, penetration rate, and self-weight were identified. Finally, soil properties inside the bucket after installation were approximated from the measured soil plug heave.