Model Studies on Monopile Behavior under Long-Term Repeated Lateral Loading
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 17, Issue 1
Abstract
Monopiles are the most commonly used foundation type for offshore wind turbine (OWT) structures and are characterized by relatively large geometric dimensions, compared with offshore pile foundations typically used in the oil and gas industries. To date, there are no established technical guidelines tailored for the design and analysis of OWT monopiles. This paper first identifies various intrinsic drawbacks involved with the existing design and analysis methodologies as applied to OWT monopiles. Next, a comprehensive experimental program of 1g repeated lateral load tests, performed on a scaled rigid monopile installed in dry sand beds, is presented to investigate its behavior under various loading scenarios. The experimental results provide insights into the various blurry issues in the existing literature related to monopile behavior under long-term repeated lateral loading. Lateral soil resistance profiles were determined from the measured pile bending strain data and found to be markedly dependent on the degree of the polynomial function used for curve-fitting of the bending strain data. Finally, an experimental model is presented for estimation of the pile’s accumulated rotation, which takes into account various basic characteristics of the applied lateral load cycles.
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Acknowledgments
The first author gratefully acknowledges a postgraduate research award received from Trinity College Dublin. The authors thank the reviewers for many helpful comments.
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 17 • Issue 1 • January 2017
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 30, 2014
Accepted: Feb 23, 2016
Published online: Apr 26, 2016
Discussion open until: Sep 26, 2016
Published in print: Jan 1, 2017
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