PRELIMINARY STUDY OF A GRAVITY FOUNDATION FAILURE

The design of oil production platforms for the North Sea has raised many engineering problems and revealed our limited knowledge on several aspects. One of these was in the prediction of wave forces on cylindrical members such as those used for the construction of jacket and gravity structures. To help solve this problem, the National Physical laboratory has built an experimental wave force measuring tower of 2.8 m diameter and about 14 m height. The Building Research Station cooperated in this experiment by being responsible for a foundation for the tower, and, in order to get most out of the experiment, they designed a gravity type foundation with a low factor of safety. The purpose of this Paper is to describe the design of this foundation and the lessons learned from its initial behavior. /Author/