Quasi-static Analysis On The Installation Of Vertically Loaded Plate Anchor

With the shift of exploitation of oil and gas towards deeper water and the use of large and super large floating structures increasing, bring up higher demands for mooring systems. It’s imperative to develop new type mooring foundation applying for deep water, including VLA(Vertically Loaded Plate Anchor), suction anchor, suction embedded plate anchor and dynamically penetrating anchor. VLA has the advantages of high holding capacities, good anchorage performance, low weight, easy to operate and retrieve, and it is a hot area of research for deep-water anchoring at present and has the broad application prospect of engineering. VLA is installed in the same way with a drag anchor, thus the theory research results of drag anchors are applicable to VLA.In this paper, the research status of anchor trajectory has been reviewed, and the load transmission in the mooring line including centenary segments in soil and in water has been summarized. Two different quasi-static analysis models are proposed according to two different installation ways, and parameter analysis on the anchor trajectory and mooring line profiles is presented. The main points of this paper are as follows:1. The first quasi-static analysis model is presented considering three segments, the anchor, the mooring line and the installation vessel. It is supposed that the installation vessel is moving when the anchor is dragged. Effects of soil parameters, flow velocities and mooring line lengths on anchor trajectory and chain profiles are studied.2. The second quasi-static analysis model is presented considering three segments, the anchor, the mooring line and the installation vessel. It is supposed that the winch is coiling the anchor line when the anchor is dragged. Effects of installation radius and soil parameter are analyzed.3. Comparative analysis are carried out and some achievements are instructive.