Experimental study of a flying wing anchor in sand under pure loading

The Flying Wing Anchor (patent pending) is a new anchor concept that stabilizes offshore foundations for renewable energy. The anchor, with a wing-like shape, uses its weight to penetrate into the seabed by free-fall and mobilizes its full capacity by using the in-service load, so it is a new concept to optimize the sustainability of offshore foundations for renewable energy. A major challenge is to understand the trajectory of the anchor during loading because the anchor capacity depends on the final embedment depth and orientation. The objective of this study is to experimentally investigate the anchor behavior under pure static loading conditions that ultimately could be used to assess the anchor trajectory through an analytical model. Physical model tests were performed on the Flying Wing Anchor for four modes of pure loading: in-plane shear vertical, normal vertical, rotation and in-plane horizontal. The results were used to calculate dimensionless breakout factors for each failure mode. The breakout factors ranged from 2 to 18 depending on the pure loading mode for embedment ratios between 1 and 4