Prospective of Biomimicking Tree Root Anchorage Mechanism to Develop an Innovative Foundation System

Inspired by the natural anchoring mechanism of the tree root system, the authors have investigated the possibility of developing a new foundation configuration in this paper. For this study, a foundation to support an onshore wind turbine, a structure that resembles a coconut or palmyra tree, was considered. First, simplified configurations of the new foundation were developed with a different number of primary piles (primary root) and secondary piles (secondary root) resembling a tree root system. These configurations consisted of six, twelve, and eighteen primary piles arranged and inclined symmetrically about the vertical axis. Each configuration consisted of a vertical pile at the center of the root bulb/ball representing the taproot. Two secondary piles were added to each primary pile in each configuration resulting in a total of six configurations. Additional three configurations were developed by increasing the length of the primary pile. Each model was analyzed in ABAQUS by applying three different vertical compression and tension loads. The results showed a reduction in vertical settlement of the foundation when the number of the primary pile and secondary pile was increased. However, the contribution of the second pile was not as significant as primary pile. The highest and the lowest Mises stresses were observed at the top and bottom of the pile, respectively. The configurations with increased length of primary pile resulted in a lower vertical settlement for the same load. However, for the configuration with six primary piles, the longer length did not affect the vertical settlement when subjected to higher two loads. Further investigation is necessary to understand the effective and efficient configurations thoroughly.