Performance of SANISAND-MS in modelling cyclic response of suction buckets in sand

This paper provides an assessment on the implementation and performance of the SANISAND-MS constitutive model in predicting the response of suction buckets under in-service operational loads. SANISAND-MS is a bounding surface plasticity model, enhanced with a memory surface (MS) to simulate the increasing sand stiffness and ratcheting under long-term drained cyclic loading. The paper begins with the calibration of the SANISAND-MS model parameters against a set of cyclic triaxial tests, involving a fine silica sand, performed at different densities and stress levels. The model is then implemented in the commercial finite element (FE) software ABAQUS. Aspects of the implementation, including the effect of model parameters and mesh size at critical locations for a boundary value problem of suction buckets, are examined in the paper. The model is then used to study in-service performance of a suction bucket under cyclic loading of different cyclic amplitudes in sand. The results are compared to those from experimental literature and insights are drawn from the numerical results. The study will benefit future FE implementation of sophisticated soil constitutive models.