Structure-Seabed Interactions in Marine Environments

A special issue of Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (ISSN 2077-1312). This special issue belongs to the section "Ocean Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 April 2021) | Viewed by 28766

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Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Key Laboratory of Offshore Geotechnics and Material of Zhejiang Province, College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China
Interests: offshore geotechnics; soil constitutive model; underground space technology in coastal region

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The safety and resilience of offshore development, including exploration of fossil and renewable energy and construction of offshore transportation (e.g., submarine tunnel, and cross-sea bridge), primarily depend on the stability and deformability of the offshore structure. This is critically governed by the complicated interactions between the fluid, offshore structures, and the seabed, which usually exhibit low strength and stiffness under cyclic loadings. Offshore structures include but are not limited to a fixed platform, offshore wind turbine foundations, underwater tunnels, cross-sea bridges, floating facility, and submarine pipelines. Meanwhile, the soil conditions of the seabed are often unusual, particularly in respect of carbonate soils, gassy soils, and structured sensitive soils.

Problem: In marine environments, various offshore structures, foundations, and subsea facilities are often subjected to extreme environmental loadings during hurricanes or typhoons. On the other hand, the weak seabed may not be able to offer sufficient resistance to these extreme loadings. The coupling of the above two issues that results in a failure in fluid–soil–structure interaction (FSSI) is proven to be the main cause for the catastrophes of offshore infrastructures which have occurred in past decades. This has necessitated a fundamental understanding of FSSI, and scientific/design methods for quantifying FSSI, with full considerations of loading characteristics and constitutive behavior of marine sediments.

Current practice: While the great majority of geotechnical engineers still rely on empirical and decoupled models to predict the deformation and stability of offshore structures, there is an increasing trend to develop macro element models by imposing springs at the soil–structure interface. Constitute soil models with an increasing level of complications have been emerging as a subroutine for finite element analysis, which enables modeling of fully coupled offshore structure–seabed interactions. With these great advancements in SSI based on different principles, there is a need to revisit and better identify the key aspects to be considered for offshore structure–soil interaction.

Goal: The scope of this Special Issue is to gather original fundamental and applied research concerning experimental, theoretical, computational, and case studies that contribute toward an understanding and improvement of offshore structure–soil interaction. The topics include but are not limited to SSI associated with problems of:

  • Marine sediment characterization;
  • Offshore oil and gas production;
  • Offshore renewable energy infrastructures;
  • Port and coastal disaster prevention;
  • Submarine/cross-sea transportation.

Prof. Dr. Dong-Sheng Jeng
Prof. Dr. Zhen Guo
Prof. Dr. Yi Hong
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • Marine sediment characterization
  • Offshore oil and gas production
  • Offshore renewable energy infrastructures
  • Port and coastal disaster prevention
  • Submarine/cross-sea transportation

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Published Papers (10 papers)

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Editorial

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4 pages, 169 KiB  
Editorial
Structure–Seabed Interactions in Marine Environments
by Zhen Guo, Yi Hong and Dong-Sheng Jeng
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9(9), 972; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9090972 - 7 Sep 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2175
Abstract
The phenomenon of soil–structure interactions in marine environments has attracted much attention from coastal and geotechnical engineers and researchers in recent years [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structure-Seabed Interactions in Marine Environments)

Research

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23 pages, 9655 KiB  
Article
Study on the Correlation between Soil Consolidation and Pile Set-Up Considering Pile Installation Effect
by Jinzhong Dou, Jinjian Chen, Chencong Liao, Min Sun and Lei Han
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9(7), 705; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9070705 - 26 Jun 2021
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 2641
Abstract
In saturated fine-grained soil, the development and dissipation of excess pore water pressure (EPWP) during and after pile jacking change the effective stress of the surrounding soil, and thereby affect the pile set-up. In this paper, the entire process of steel-pipe pile jacking [...] Read more.
In saturated fine-grained soil, the development and dissipation of excess pore water pressure (EPWP) during and after pile jacking change the effective stress of the surrounding soil, and thereby affect the pile set-up. In this paper, the entire process of steel-pipe pile jacking (the installation process and the subsequent consolidation phase) is simulated with three-dimensional (3D) finite element models, considering the pore water effect. After the model verification, a comprehensive numerical analysis was performed to investigate the development and dissipation of EPWP, changes in soil stress state, and the side shear resistance of pile with time after installation. On this basis, not only the influence of ks, cu, E, and OCR on EPWP generation during pile jacking and subsequent soil consolidation effect after pile installation but also the correlation between pile set-up and EPWP dissipation is investigated. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structure-Seabed Interactions in Marine Environments)
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15 pages, 6888 KiB  
Article
On the Slope Stability of the Submerged Trench of the Immersed Tunnel Subjected to Solitary Wave
by Weiyun Chen, Dan Wang, Lingyu Xu, Zhenyu Lv, Zhihua Wang and Hongmei Gao
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9(5), 526; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9050526 - 13 May 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3215
Abstract
Wave is a common environmental load that often causes serious damages to offshore structures. In addition, the stability for the submarine artificial slope is also affected by the wave loading. Although the landslide of submarine slopes induced by the waves received wide attention, [...] Read more.
Wave is a common environmental load that often causes serious damages to offshore structures. In addition, the stability for the submarine artificial slope is also affected by the wave loading. Although the landslide of submarine slopes induced by the waves received wide attention, the research on the influence of solitary wave is rare. In this study, a 2-D integrated numerical model was developed to investigate the stability of the foundation trench under the solitary wave loading. The Reynolds-averaged Stokes (RANS) equations were used to simulate the propagation of a solitary wave, while the current was realized by setting boundary inlet/outlet velocity. The pore pressure induced by the solitary wave was calculated by Darcy’s law, and the seabed was characterized by Mohr–Coulomb constitutive model. Firstly, the wave model was validated through the comparison between analytical solution and experimental data. The initial consolidation state of slope under hydrostatic pressure was achieved as the initial state. Then, the factor of stability (FOS) for the slope corresponding to different distances between wave crest and slope top was calculated with the strength reduction method. The minimum of FOS was defined as the stability index for the slope with specific slope ratio during the process of dynamic wave loading. The parametric study was conducted to examine the effects of soil strength parameters, slope ratio, and current direction. At last, the influence of upper slope ratio in a two-stage slope was also discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structure-Seabed Interactions in Marine Environments)
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26 pages, 22355 KiB  
Article
The Effects of Installation on the Elastic Stiffness Coefficients of Spudcan Foundations
by Wen-Long Lin, Zhen Wang, Fei Liu and Jiang-Tao Yi
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9(4), 429; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9040429 - 15 Apr 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2304
Abstract
Subjected to pre-load, spudcan foundations, widely utilized to support offshore jack-up rigs, may penetrate in a few diameters into soft clays before mobilizing sufficient resistance from soil. While its stress–strain behavior is known to be affected by the embedment condition and soil backflow, [...] Read more.
Subjected to pre-load, spudcan foundations, widely utilized to support offshore jack-up rigs, may penetrate in a few diameters into soft clays before mobilizing sufficient resistance from soil. While its stress–strain behavior is known to be affected by the embedment condition and soil backflow, the small-strain calculation with wished-in-place assumption was previously adopted to analyze its elastic stiffness coefficients. This study takes advantage of a recently developed dual-stage Eulerian–Lagrangian (DSEL) technique to re-evaluate the elastic stiffness coefficients of spudcans after realistically modelling the deep, continuous spudcan penetration. A numerical parametric exercise is conducted to investigate the effects of strength non-homogeneity, embedment depths, and the spudcan’s size on the elastic stiffness. On these bases, an expression is provided such that the practicing engineers can conveniently factor the installation effects into the estimation of elastic stiffness coefficients of spudcans. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structure-Seabed Interactions in Marine Environments)
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16 pages, 2244 KiB  
Article
Fractional-Order Elastoplastic Modeling of Sands Considering Cyclic Mobility
by Leiye Wu, Wei Cheng and Zhehao Zhu
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9(4), 354; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9040354 - 24 Mar 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2197
Abstract
Seabed soil may experience a reduction in strength or even liquefaction when subjected to cyclic loadings exerted by offshore structures and environmental loadings such as ocean waves and earthquakes. A reasonable and robust constitutive soil model is indispensable for accurate assessment of such [...] Read more.
Seabed soil may experience a reduction in strength or even liquefaction when subjected to cyclic loadings exerted by offshore structures and environmental loadings such as ocean waves and earthquakes. A reasonable and robust constitutive soil model is indispensable for accurate assessment of such structure–seabed interactions in marine environments. In this paper, a new constitutive model is proposed by enriching subloading surface theory with a fractional-order plastic flow rule and multiple hardening rules. A detailed validation of both stress- and strain-controlled undrained cyclic test results of medium-dense Karlsruhe fine sand is provided to demonstrate the robustness of the present constitutive model to capture the non-associativity and cyclic mobility of sandy soils. The new fractional cyclic model is then implemented into a finite element code based on a two-phase field theory via a user subroutine, and a numerical case study on the response of seabed soils around a submarine pipeline under cyclic wave loadings is presented to highlight the practical applications of this model in structure–seabed interactions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structure-Seabed Interactions in Marine Environments)
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16 pages, 9304 KiB  
Article
Impacts of Consolidation Time on the Critical Hydraulic Gradient of Newly Deposited Silty Seabed in the Yellow River Delta
by Meiyun Tang, Yonggang Jia, Shaotong Zhang, Chenxi Wang and Hanlu Liu
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9(3), 270; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9030270 - 3 Mar 2021
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1947
Abstract
The silty seabed in the Yellow River Delta (YRD) is exposed to deposition, liquefaction, and reconsolidation repeatedly, during which seepage flows are crucial to the seabed strength. In extreme cases, seepage flows could cause seepage failure (SF) in the seabed, endangering the offshore [...] Read more.
The silty seabed in the Yellow River Delta (YRD) is exposed to deposition, liquefaction, and reconsolidation repeatedly, during which seepage flows are crucial to the seabed strength. In extreme cases, seepage flows could cause seepage failure (SF) in the seabed, endangering the offshore structures. A critical condition exists for the occurrence of SF, i.e., the critical hydraulic gradient (icr). Compared with cohesionless sands, the icr of cohesive sediments is more complex, and no universal evaluation theory is available yet. The present work first improved a self-designed annular flume to avoid SF along the sidewall, then simulated the SF process of the seabed with different consolidation times in order to explore the icr of newly deposited silty seabed in the YRD. It is found that the theoretical formula for icr of cohesionless soil grossly underestimated the icr of cohesive soil. The icr range of silty seabed in the YRD was 8–16, which was significantly affected by the cohesion and was inversely proportional to the seabed fluidization degree. SF could “pump” the sediments vertically from the interior of the seabed with a contribution to sediment resuspension of up to 93.2–96.8%. The higher the consolidation degree, the smaller the contribution will be. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structure-Seabed Interactions in Marine Environments)
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17 pages, 4795 KiB  
Article
Constitutive Modeling of Physical Properties of Coastal Sand during Tunneling Construction Disturbance
by Jian-Feng Zhu, Hong-Yi Zhao, Ri-Qing Xu, Zhan-You Luo and Dong-Sheng Jeng
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9(2), 167; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9020167 - 6 Feb 2021
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2244
Abstract
This paper presents a simple but workable constitutive model for the stress–strain relationship of sandy soil during the process of tunneling construction disturbance in coastal cities. The model was developed by linking the parameter K and internal angle φ of the Duncan–Chang model [...] Read more.
This paper presents a simple but workable constitutive model for the stress–strain relationship of sandy soil during the process of tunneling construction disturbance in coastal cities. The model was developed by linking the parameter K and internal angle φ of the Duncan–Chang model with the disturbed degree of sand, in which the effects of the initial void ratio on the strength deformation property of sands are considered using a unified disturbance function based on disturbed state concept theory. Three cases were analyzed to investigate the validity of the proposed constitutive model considering disturbance. After validation, the proposed constitutive model was further incorporated into a 3D finite element framework to predict the soil deformation caused by shield construction. It was found that the simulated results agreed well with the analytical solution, indicating that the developed numerical model with proposed constitutive relationship is capable of characterizing the mechanical properties of sand under tunneling construction disturbance. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structure-Seabed Interactions in Marine Environments)
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30 pages, 3097 KiB  
Article
Meshless Model for Wave-Induced Oscillatory Seabed Response around a Submerged Breakwater Due to Regular and Irregular Wave Loading
by Dong-Sheng Jeng, Xiaoxiao Wang and Chia-Cheng Tsai
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9(1), 15; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9010015 - 24 Dec 2020
Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2309
Abstract
The evaluation of wave-induced seabed stability around a submerged breakwater is particularly important for coastal engineers involved in design of the foundation of breakwaters. Unlike previous studies, a mesh-free model is developed to investigate the dynamic soil response around a submerged breakwater in [...] Read more.
The evaluation of wave-induced seabed stability around a submerged breakwater is particularly important for coastal engineers involved in design of the foundation of breakwaters. Unlike previous studies, a mesh-free model is developed to investigate the dynamic soil response around a submerged breakwater in this study. Both regular and irregular wave loadings are considered. The present model was validated against the previous experimental data and theoretical models for both regular and irregular waves. Parametric study shows the regular wave-induced liquefaction depth increases as wave period and wave height increase. The seabed is more likely to be liquefied with a low degree of saturation and soil permeability. A similar trend of the effects of wave and seabed characteristics on the irregular wave-induced soil response is found in the numerical examples. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structure-Seabed Interactions in Marine Environments)
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Review

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21 pages, 2960 KiB  
Review
Advances in Numerical Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes Modelling of Wave-Structure-Seabed Interactions and Scour
by Pilar Díaz-Carrasco, Sergio Croquer, Vahid Tamimi, Jay Lacey and Sébastien Poncet
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9(6), 611; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9060611 - 2 Jun 2021
Cited by 9 | Viewed by 4653
Abstract
This review paper presents the recent advances in the numerical modelling of wave–structure–seabed interactions. The processes that are involved in wave–structure interactions, which leads to sediment transport and scour effects, are summarized. Subsequently, the three most common approaches for modelling sediment transport that [...] Read more.
This review paper presents the recent advances in the numerical modelling of wave–structure–seabed interactions. The processes that are involved in wave–structure interactions, which leads to sediment transport and scour effects, are summarized. Subsequently, the three most common approaches for modelling sediment transport that is induced by wave–structure interactions are described. The applicability of each numerical approach is also included with a summary of the most recent studies. These approaches are based on the Reynolds-Averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations for the fluid phase, and mostly differ in how they tackle the seabed response. Finally, future prospects of research are discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structure-Seabed Interactions in Marine Environments)
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Other

10 pages, 1642 KiB  
Technical Note
Design and Application of an In Situ Test Device for Rheological Characteristic Measurements of Liquefied Submarine Sediments
by Hong Zhang, Xiaolei Liu, Anduo Chen, Weijia Li, Yang Lu and Xingsen Guo
J. Mar. Sci. Eng. 2021, 9(6), 639; https://doi.org/10.3390/jmse9060639 - 9 Jun 2021
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2791
Abstract
Liquefied submarine sediments can easily lead to submarine landslides and turbidity currents, and cause serious damage to offshore engineering facilities. Understanding the rheological characteristics of liquefied sediments is critical for improving our knowledge of the prevention of submarine geo-hazards and the evolution of [...] Read more.
Liquefied submarine sediments can easily lead to submarine landslides and turbidity currents, and cause serious damage to offshore engineering facilities. Understanding the rheological characteristics of liquefied sediments is critical for improving our knowledge of the prevention of submarine geo-hazards and the evolution of submarine topography. In this study, an in situ test device was developed to measure the rheological properties of liquefied sediments. The test principle is the shear column theory. The device was tested in the subaqueous Yellow River delta, and the test results indicated that liquefied sediments can be regarded as “non-Newtonian fluids with shear thinning characteristics”. Furthermore, a laboratory rheological test was conducted as a contrast experiment to qualitatively verify the accuracy of the in situ test data. Through the comparison of experiments, it was proved that the use of the in situ device in this paper is suitable and reliable for the measurement of the rheological characteristics of liquefied submarine sediments. Considering the fact that liquefaction may occur in deeper water (>5 m), a work pattern for the device in the offshore area is given. This novel device provides a new way to test the undrained shear strength of liquefied sediments in submarine engineering. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Structure-Seabed Interactions in Marine Environments)
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