Implications Of New Code Versions To Pile Fatigue Assessment

摘要

The aim of this paper is to present the methodology currently followed in the offshore industry for theprediction of the pile fatigue induced by pile hammering during installation. A few decades ago piles werethicker, of lower yield stress and hammers were less efficient. Today, to be cost effective, it is commonto use high strength steel resulting in lower pile thickness and increased driving stress together with betterhammer efficiency to reduce installation time. Hence fatigue damages are more important. Evaluation offatigue damages depend on various parameters such as applied stresses, number of blows, StressConcentration Factor (SCF) and S-N curves. It is shown how fatigue damages are dependant on the choiceof the values used for the SCF and S-N curves and also on applied stresses by the hammer, and in the endthe impact of these parameters on the residual available fatigue life for the in-place conditions.