Large Deformation Numerical Modeling of Bucket Foundations Installation Using a Hypoplastic Model for Structured Clays

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6239-682-1_10How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Large Deformation; Bucket Foundation; Hypoplastic Clay

Abstract

Bucket foundations, favored for their low cost and ease of installation, have seen widespread adoption in marine renewable energy projects such as offshore wind farms. However, marine soils often exhibit high sensitivity, which can markedly influence soil strength and penetration resistance during installation. Traditional elastoplastic model models fall short in accurately capturing the nonlinear deformation and structural degradation of sensitive soils, leading to discrepancies in predicting foundation penetration performance. To address this challenge, this study adopts a hypoplastic constitutive model tailored for structured clays within the framework of critical state soil mechanics. The model introduces a structural parameter to describe the progressive breakdown of soil fabric and the associated reduction in strength under shear strain. A large-deformation numerical model was built in ABAQUS to reproduce the installation of bucket foundations in structured clay and to capture the associated soil-structure interaction. By integrating the RITSS method with the hypoplastic constitutive model that incorporates sensitivity evolution, comparative analyses were performed across varying initial sensitivities s ini and degradation rates k . The results reveal how these parameters govern soil strength evolution and penetration behavior during installation.

Copyright

© 2026 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Chenyao Wei
AU  - Teng Wang
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/06/30
TI  - Large Deformation Numerical Modeling of Bucket Foundations Installation Using a Hypoplastic Model for Structured Clays
BT  - Proceedings of the 2025 7th International Conference on Civil Architecture and Urban Engineering (ICCAUE 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 96
EP  - 104
SN  - 2589-4943
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6239-682-1_10
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6239-682-1_10
ID  - Wei2026
ER  -