Research on the Development Mechanism of Submarine Cable Suspension and Fatigue Life Assessment under the Action of Ocean Currents

In submarine cable protection engineering, the widely employed rock berms can alter the natural marine microtopography and hydrodynamic conditions, inducing seabed scouring that leads to the failure of submarine cable protection and the formation of exposed and suspended cables. Suspended submarine cables are susceptible to vortex-induced vibrations (VIV) under the action of ocean currents, which in turn cause fatigue damage to the structural layers of the cables. Addressing the issues of large-scale suspension and internal lead sheath damage observed at the protected end of a rock berm in a practical submarine cable project, this paper investigates the influence and evolutionary patterns of rock berms on seabed scouring development, analyzes the periodic VIV characteristics of suspended…