Bearing capacity analysis of different spud-cans in saturated clay

Nowadays, jack-up platforms are widely used in the offshore industry with different uses and are designed according to the type of use. The most important part of designing these types of platforms is designing the load-bearing capacity of its spud-cans against environmental and operational forces. Jack-up spud-can are often of the traditional spud-can type, which has led to accidents during operation due to its low soil retention. Recent studies have shifted to increasing the clogging of jack-up spud-can using a skirted system and replacing traditional spud-cans with bucket spud-cans. In the present study, the load-bearing capacity of SA-20 jack-up spud-cans has been investigated on a case-by-case basis using a replacement of traditional spud-can with a bucket spud-can in a saturated clay with the prevailing environmental conditions. SACS software has been used to obtain the forces applied to the spud-can and Abaqus software has been used to model the loading capacity of the pile. The results show that uses of bucket spud-can lead to an increase in the ultimate bearing capacity ratio of spud-can compared to traditional spud-can in saturated clay soils.