276

Construction of Marine and Offshore Structures

Un-reinforced concrete plugs, both of lightweight and normal-weight concrete, have been employed on the concrete offshore platforms in the North Sea to seal the conductor sleeves. The plug is usually 1.52 m thick, with welded shear lugs on the sleeve to transfer shear. These plugs are then drilled out prior to driving the conductors. Increasingly, skirt piles for deep-water offshore platforms are arranged in clusters around the corner jacket legs and their loading transferred to the jacket by means of sleeves bracketed out from the sides. The nal top of these piles will then be underwater a distance equal to the water depth less the sleeve length. This latter is usually 2030 m. The pile connection is made by grout. To drive the pile so far below water requires the use of either an underwater hammer or a follower. Several types of hydraulic underwater hammers are now made, two of which can t inside the pile guides which are bracketed out from the jacket at higher levels. These slim hydraulic hammers are now employed for piling in deep water since they deliver essentially full energy to the pile, without the losses inherent in the use of followers. However, for shallow water and inland marine structures, followers are usually employed. The follower is a thick-walled pile section with a machined driving head on its tip which ts snugly over the head of the pile, transmitting axial compression, while preventing local buckling. Occasionally, due to misalignment or minor variances in the pile head, the pile becomes jammed into the driving head and the follower cannot be removed. Then the pile must be cut off, either by divers or else by a drill rig using expanding casing-cutter tools. To prevent excessive delays under such a circumstance, the corrective tools should be on board. Experience shows that with a properly tting driving head, a square cut on the pile, and a pile wall thickness that is not too small, that is, not less than 25 mm, there is very little loss in efciency by use of the follower. Where excessively hard driving is expectedas, for example, when driving though limestone or caprock strataa driving shoe should be provided at the pile tip. API RP2A suggests that this be at least one diameter in length and have a wall thickness 1.5 times the minimum thickness of the parent pile section. Experience in driving through weak limestone containing embedded basalt cobbles has indicated that such a shoe should be two diameters in length to prevent buckling like an accordion. Steel quality should be as high yield as can be properly welded; since the weld is made in the shop, it can be properly pre-heated and post-heated as required. Cast steel shoes are available for the small- to moderate-diameter piles, also for steel H piles. These are more easily afxed and welded (see Figure 8.17). The shoe should normally have the same internal diameter as that of the pile in case it becomes necessary to drill through the pile as a casing; otherwise, the drill may catch. The slightly larger diameter tip will relieve some of the skin frictional resistance on the main pile body. Where this is judged unacceptable by the geotechnical engineer, an internal pile shoe can be used, with its consequent restrictions on any drilling. When grouting piles to the jacket sleeves or when grouting between an insert pile and a primary pile, it is essential that the spaces be completely lled. Experience has shown that grout can trap water and bypass it unless great care is taken. As noted earlier, the steel surfaces should be free of mill scale or varnish. Mud must be excluded from the annulus; this may require the use of wipers when working in very soft muds. The steel surfaces must also be clean of marine growth (which may form in relatively short periods of shallow submergence) and free from oil or other contamination. Bentonite drilling mud should be ushed out with water where this can be done without endangering a drilled hole. If it cannot be safely ushed out, a polymer-based mud should be used. Both neat cements and expanding cements are used; the latter can give improved bond and shear transfer. API RP2A requires that an expansive, nonshrinking grout be used.

q 2007 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC