Introduction  The spudcan foundation is the key structure of the mobile jack-up platform, which displaces surrounding soil during its penetrating installation. In order to ensure the safety in the application of mobile jack-up platform to the offshore wind power installation works, it is particularly important to research the evolution of surrounding soil flow mechanism during spudcan penetration, and to evaluate the penetration resistance of spudcan reliably.

  Method  The coupling Euler-Lagrange (CEL) method was used in this research to simualte the process of spudcan penetration under several typical seabed geological conditions (homogeneous and heterogeneous clay, sand, "clay-sand-clay" and "clay (hard)-sand (soft) and clay (hard)"), and to analyze the differences of penetration mechanisms.

  Result  The simulation results show that in the process of spudcan penetration, the soil flow mechanism and penetration resistance of spudcan are closely related to the strength characteristics of seabed soil, while the friction coefficient of the interface between spudcan and seabed soil has little effect on the penetration mechanism and resistance.

  Conclusion  From comparision with the results calculated in accordance current design specifications, the method combining large deformation finite element analysis and industry code design should be recommended to be applied in engineering design practice, as to provide a better basis for the assessment of punch-through risk and the prediction of penetrating depth in the process of spudcan penetration.