Ultimate pullout resistance of plate anchors buried in sandy seabed

摘要

This paper studies the behavior of plate anchors buried in sandy soils. For that purpose, finite element simulations of square plate anchors, with different embedment depths and three different sand densities, were performed. The results of those numerical simulations are compared with previous analytical solutions. The behavior of the anchors against inclined loads due to a deficient keying process is also analyzed. Differences between failure mechanisms of shallow and deep anchors are exposed too. The numerical results show an increment of the capacity of the anchor with depth and compactness of the soil, and, as expected, a reasonably accurate consistency with previous analytical solutions. The resistance is considerably reduced when the inclination of the loading is not perpendicular to the fluke of the anchors and exceeds a critical value.