Pile foundations for large North Sea structures

The oil fields in the northern part of the North Sea, with their great water depth and adverse sea conditions, have led to new concepts in the design of pile foundations for production platforms. This paper reviews the current state of the art for North Sea pile design, as determined by the soil conditions on the one hand and the available installation techniques on the other hand. It contains comments on the safety factors used in the design and finally describes the observations to be made during pile installation to check the reliability of the theoretical pile capacities.