Experimental Study on the Local Scour around a Leg-Type Offshore Structure

Abstract

If jack-up drilling rig or other leg-type operation platforms are settled on a sandy erodible seabed in a rough environmental condition, they will likely to undergo local scour around their legs. Therefore, it is indispensable to a safety design of such structures to devise the countermeasures against the scour at their design stage.
The fixed-bed tests and movable-bed tests in use of cylinders were carried out in order to investigate the characteristics of the local scour and movable-bed tests in use of four model footings of a jack-up rig were carried out in order to investigate the footing configurations effective for mininizing the local scour.
In this paper, the results and some considerations are given to discuss the scour protection methods for leg-type offshore structures.