Episodic DSS tests to measure changing strength for whole-life geotechnical design

Changes in seabed soil strength due to loading events during the life of a structure, affect the response of the structure to any future event. This change in soil strength due to loading events, in particular cyclic loads, was of great concern in the field of offshore geotechnics during the last decades. Allowing for these changes can have a beneficial outcome on the design. Studying the changes occurring in the soil can be mainly done using large scale centrifuge tests or Laboratory element testing, where the latter proved to be able to successfully illustrate soil strength changes during periods of cyclic loads and reconsolidation. A new approach of life design known as “the whole life design” has been introduced lately to the industry “. Whole life design embraces the time-varying evolution of actions and resistances to create a continuous assessment of conditions of a structure. This dissertation studies the possibility of one of the most famous element tests which is the “Direct simple shear testing” to capture the changing in strength under cyclic (i.e., episodic in this context) loads and the settlement of subsea layers for the whole life geotechnical design. The outcome of the DSS testing in addition to outcomes from other previous methods (eg T-bar penetrations and Triaxial testing) can form the basis for a new framework to be adopted in the future for demonstrating a whole life design for subsea structures. In general, the project introduces the concept of whole-life geotechnical design through practical examples and shed lights on Direct simple shear testing ability to simulate specific cyclic loading scenarios. The topic closes with a discussion of next steps to enable whole-life geotechnical design to be more readily adopted in routine practice where appropriate.