Numerical Modeling of Sampling Seafloor Sediments to Study Their Rheological Properties

The work presents the results of applying SIMULIA Abaqus's capabilities to solve problems related to infrastructure development in the development of oil and gas fields on the continental shelf. The primary attention is paid to the stability of the load-bearing structures of infrastructure facilities. When developing oil and gas fields located in the continental shelf, several geomechanical problems not typical for onshore fields arise. First of all, there is a need to construct a detailed model of the mechanical properties of the upper layers of bottom sediments in conditions of limited data on these properties. This limitation of data is caused by the complexity and cost of engineering drilling, which in other conditions provides the necessary information regarding the properties of the upper layers of sediments. Current study describes the proposed set of methods for studying the mechanical properties of the upper layers of bottom sediments using sampling. It is shown that the process of bottom sampling itself makes it possible to estimate the mechanical properties of bottom sediments. Quantitatively, such estimations can be made based on a numerical solution of the contact problem of gravity corer indentation into visco-elastoplastic medium, the specific rheological properties of which are a priori unknown. The possibility of determining the possible values of these properties from the data obtained in the sampling process (the dependence of the acceleration of the contact point on time) is demonstrated in the study with solution of the inverse problem.