Kinematic trajectory analysis of dragging hall anchor in sand

The theoretical model proposed by Yan et al. (2015) was further derived to analyze the kinematic trajectory of dragged anchor in the cohesionless seabed. Series of model tests are conducted using three scaled hall anchor models dragged in the sand to verify the accuracy of the proposed theory. The results from theoretical predictions are in good agreement with those from the model tests. The theoretical model could precisely predict the motion process of the dragging anchor, such as the opening of anchor fluke, the upturning of anchor crown, the overturning and embedding of the hall anchor, and their corresponding dragging forces. •Theoretical model proposed by Yan et al. (2015) was further derived to analyze the kinematic trajectory of dragged anchor.•Model tests are conducted using three scaled hall anchor models dragged to verify the accuracy of the proposed theoretical model.•The proposed theoretical model can accurately predict the buried depth and dragging force versus dragging distance curves.