Numerical Modelling of Liquefaction Around Marine Structures - Progress and Recent Developments

Abstract

The liquefaction around marine structures can lead to severe structural failure and the susceptibility of seabed soil to liquefaction at a specific installation site of, e.g., floating offshore wind turbines should be included within the design process and site evaluation. To that end, advanced prediction tools based on numerical modelling can provide valuable insight into the hydro-geotechnical processes. However, due to the complex interaction of the underlying physics, developing a holistic modelling framework for seabed liquefaction is a challenging task. The NuLIMAS research project (Numerical modelling of seabed liquefaction around marine structures) aims at the development of such a numerical model of seabed liquefaction implemented in the OpenFOAM® framework. This paper provides an overview of the NuLIMAS project, laying out the current state of the art of experimental and numerical modelling approaches for seabed liquefaction and presenting some initial results.