Soil Investigation and Stability Analysis of Oil Rigs in Western

Offshore Basin of India

Presented by
ATUL KUMAR SINGH
Under the Guidance of
Prof Dr. P.K.Maiti (Dept. of Civil Engg., IIT(BHU))
Prof. Dr. M.S.Kulkarni (Dept. of Civil Engg., MIT, Pune)
Prof G.S.Ingle (Dept. of Civil Engg., MIT, Pune)

In Association with

Index

Introduction

Soil Investigation For the establishment of Oil Rigs

Stability Analysis of oil Rigs

Introduction
Anoil platform,offshore platform, or (colloquially)oil rigis a large
structure with facilities to drill wells, to extract and processoiland
natural gas, or to temporarily store product until it can be brought to
shore for refining and marketing. In many cases, the platform
contains facilities to house the workforce as well.
Depending on the circumstances, the platform may befixedto the
ocean floor, may consist of anartificial island, or mayfloat. Remote
subseawells may also be connected to a platform by flow lines and
byumbilicalconnections. These subsea solutions may consist of one
or more subsea wells, or of one or more manifold centres for multiple
wells.

Fig.1 Standard ONGC Oil Rig

Soil Investigation for Oil Rigs

Geotechnical Field investigation for the two types of Oil Rigs (Jacket and Jack-Up Rigs) is
performed by ONGCs Geotechnical Vessel Samudra Sarvekshak.

The purpose of Investigation was to determine the Soil Condition at the location for the
assessment of Ultimate Axial Capacity, Load Deformation, p-y data for tubular piles, Jack-up
rigs Penetration for Standard ONGC rig.

CPTU was done on spot up to a depth of 107.50m below the sea bed after every 5m interval
so as to determine various parameters, and after that the Soil Sample was sent to IEOT,
ONGC for laboratory experiments so as to determine Shear Strength, Atterberg Limit etc. so
as to compare the results of both the testing's.

Axial pile Capacities and Axial Load-deformation characteristics (t-z and q-z data) for open
ended steel piles of diameter 1.5 m.

Mudmat Bearing Capacity was also determined for Jacket type Structure.

Fig. 3 Jack-up

Laboratory Testing's (Offshore and Onshore)

OFFSHORE

Visual Classification

Water Content

Undrained Shear Strength by Torvane, motorvane, and Pocket Penetrometer

UU Triaxial Tests

ONSHORE

Grain Size distribution (Using Hydrometer Analysis)

Atterberg Limit

Carbonate Content

UU (Triaxial) (Cyclic as well as Non Cyclic Loading)

Results

Complete soil profile and soil parameters were determined with the help of Offshore and Onshore
Lab experiments.

Various Layer of Soil and Sand were present at particular depth below the sea bed.(No layer of
Silt were found out)

Axial Pile Capacity is determined with the help of properties of Soil.

t-z and q-z data was determined (Axial Load Deformation Data).

Bending moments and Deflections induced in laterally loaded piles are evaluated numerically
and after that p-y data is generated.

Penetration analysis for Standard ONGC jack up rig with the spudcan of diameter 14m and
Maximum preload of 45MN is carried out, and the bearing capacity curves are plotted.

Stability Analysis (Numerical Modelling of Jack-Up Rigs

and Jacket)

There are more than 9000 xed offshore platforms around the world related to hydrocarbon
production, the largest numbers of platforms are located in South East Asia, Gulf of Mexico and the
North Sea followed by the coast of India, Nigeria, Venezuela and the Mediterranean Sea.

The Design of Marine Structure should be compatible with the extreme Offshore environmental
conditions (external loads) like:a) Wind Load
b) Hydrodynamic Loading
c) Wave in deck loading
d) Earthquake Loading
e) Ice loading

Types of Oil Rigs (Platforms)

Jacket Structure and Jack-Up rigs

Main Pile with

Typical Jacket Structure

Skirt pile and Mudmat

Main Pile with

Typical Jack-up

Spud Can with

Analysis On the basis of Loadings

a) Hydrodynamic Loading (Wind Generated Waves)

Hydrodynamic loading is the load that is applied by the Oscillatory flow of Oceanic
waves. In fluid dynamics, Airy wave theory (often referred to as linear wave theory)
gives a linearized description of the propagation of gravity waves on the surface of a
homogeneous fluid layer.

This linear theory is often used to get a quick and rough estimate of wave
characteristics and their effects. This approximation is accurate for small ratios of
the wave height to water depth (for waves in shallow water), and wave height to
wavelength (for waves in deep water).

The surface elevation of an Airy wave of amplitude a, at any instance of time t and horizontal position x
in the direction of travel of the wave, is denoted by (x,t) and is given by:

(x,t) = a cos(x t)
where wave number = 2/ L in which L represents the wavelength and circular frequency =
2/T in which T represents the period of the wave. The celerity, or speed, of the wave C is given by
L/T or /, and the crest to trough wave height, H, is given by 2a.

p-m wave spectrum

Ocean waves are predominantly generated by wind and although they appear to be irregular in character, tend to
exhibit frequency-dependent characteristics that conform to an identifiable spectral description.
Pierson and Moskowitz (1964), proposed a spectral description for a fully-developed sea state from data captured in
the North Atlantic ocean:

was a good fit to the observed spectra, where = 2f, f is the wave frequency in Hertz, = 8.1 103, = 0.74 , 0 =
g/U19.5 and U19.5 is the wind speed at a height of 19.5 m above the sea surface.
By integrating S() over all we get the variance of surface
elevation:

The significant wave height is:

b) Morison Equation

Inertial Force

Drag Force

Morison Equation gives the linear inertia force (from potential theory and oscillating Flows) and the adapted quadratic
drag force (from real Flows and constant currents) to get the following resultant force (per unit length)
& (Morison Constants) depends on Reynolds Number and KC Number. ( & 1.2 <). It is found that for KC < 10, inertia
forces progressively dominate; for 10 < KC < 20 both inertia and drag force components are significant and for KC >
20, drag force progressively dominates.

Loads

Self weight
The generated self weight of all members sums up to 400000 N.
Hydrodynamic Loading
Wave Height (m)

Wave Speed
(U19.5)

Time Period
(sec)

Wavelength(m)

Drag Force (MN)

6.67

4.89

32.2

.051

1.5

8.17

6.05

49.4

.080

9.44

7.00

66.08

.116

2.5

10.55

8.37

88.30

.141

11.56

8.55

98.84

.164

3.5

12.4

9.176

113.78

.186

13.3

9.84

130.8

.211

4.5

14.17

10.48

148.50

.236

14.9

11.02

169.3

.244

Table 1. Input Data Using NOAA and ONGC data for water Depth 75m

Results from analyses

In the dynamic analyses the time steps used range from 0.001 s to 0.05 s. This corresponds to 0.0008Tn
and 0.04Tn, respectively. The tiny time steps have been necessary to capture all nonlinear incidents.
Performance based on pushover analysis
The static ultimate capacity for base shear show only minor variations, ranging from 83.8 MN to 86.3
MN. The largest capacity is found for a water depth of 78 m, corresponding to an Wave of 2.81 m.
Whereas the ultimate capacity does not show any significant sensitivity to the load distribution (limited
to those distributions analysed herein), the initial elastic stiffness clearly does.
100

Structural resistance [MN]

d = 76 m
80

d = 77 m
d = 78 m

60

d = 79 m
d = 80 m

40

d = 81 m

20

0
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

Displacement [m]

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

(a) Depth 75 m / Wave

0.95 m
(b) Depth 81 m /
Wave 5.63 m

Water

Deck

Total wave

First yield

Sec. yield

Main yield

Ult. cap.

depth

inund.

load BSa

Bsa

BSa

BSa

BSa

[m]

[m]

[MN]

[MN]

[m]

[MN]

[m]

[MN]

[m]

[MN]

[m]

76.0

0.93

41.11

33.77

0.136

48.48

0.196

68.62

0.278

83.83

0.347

77.0

1.87

47.69

25.01

0.114

44.71

0.205

67.57

0.310

85.91

0.403

78.0

2.81

58.71

20.03

0.100

41.60

0.210

63.49

0.321

86.31

0.450

79.0

3.75

66.18

18.10

0.095

40.06

0.212

61.18

0.325

85.65

0.467

80.0

4.69

72.86

16.88

0.092

39.07

0.214

58.90

0.324

85.05

0.482

81.0

5.63

79.66

16.06

0.090

38.34

0.216

55.80

0.316

84.52

0.494

Performance based on time domain analysis

The resulting displacement histories for different water depths (and corresponding wave height) are given in
Figure Below. It has not been possible to produce time domain analyses of acceptable numerical quality for water
depths from 79.5 m and beyond, due to numerical instability. The largest depth analysed is therefore 79 m,
corresponding to an Wave of 3.75 m. The brace configuration of the model causes instability for responses
resulting from loading above this level.

Time histories of accelerations are given for the four relevant analysis cases. For d = 76 m the response is close to
purely elastic and the largest accelerations are approximately 1.5 m/s 2. At d = 77 m the acceleration peaks are 3.2 3.3 m/s2, and for d = 78 m the peaks are rather close to 5.9 m/s2. The last case, d = 79 m, has very irregular
accelerations due to many plastic incidents. The largest acceleration value is negative, and is close to 6.1 m/s 2. This
negative peak is followed by a positive peak of 4.8 m/s 2. Thereafter the acceleration peaks remain at 2 - 4 m/s 2, but
are decreasing due to material damping.

References

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under extreme storm cyclic loading, part II: Cyclic capacity of tubular members. In Proceedings of the 14th International
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Bea, R. G., Iversen, R., and Xu, T. (2001). Wave-in-deck forces on offshore platforms. Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic
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Bea, R. G. and Mortazavi, M. M. (1996). ULSLEA: A limit equilibrium procedure to determine the ultimate limit state loading
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