A review on suction pile technology in offshore engineering

Driven piles have been vastly used in the past as the deep foundation of pile-supported stationary platforms in ofshore structures. A typical example is the piled steel jacket structures. Such piles have been successfully driven for many oil production projects worldwide and in Persian Gulf within the past decades. Long steel pipes, with outside diameters of 1000 mm or higher, are driven down to competent layers to accumulare the desired bearing capacity. There is a limit on depth of water, however, into which a pile can be driven. In recent years, oil industries have expanded their expriences in deep waters. In Gulf of Mexico, for example, depth of water in oil producing projects are the range of 2000 to 5000 m Neither driven piles nor cast-in-place caissons are practical and/or cost effective in such depths. Alternative technologies have been examined within the past decade for construction of piles in deep waters. One of the successful experiences has been application of "suction pile" technique. Suction pile concept is both a construction (installation) method and also an element for sustaining tensile transient loads during lifetime of floating structures by means of suction.