Shaking Table Tests and Seismic Response of Three-Bucket Jacket Foundations for Offshore Wind Turbines

The seismic response characteristics of three-bucket jacket foundations for offshore wind turbines(OWTs)and the liquefaction of the surrounding soil are particularly important for the development and application of this type of structure for offshore use.Using the shaking table test and three-dimensional finite element analysis,different magnitudes of simulated earthquake waves were used as inputs to the shaking table to model seismic excitations.The resulting changes in the excess pore water pressure and acceleration response of the soil under horizontal earthquake are compared in this paper.Calculations of the anti-liquefaction shear stress and equivalent shearing stress during the earthquake,determination of the areas prone to liquefaction,and identification of the effect of the three-bucket jacket foundation on the soil liquefaction resistance were conducted by developing a soil-structure finite element model.The development law of the soil’s amplification effect on seismic acceleration and the seismic response of the foundation soil under various magnitude earthquake waves were also discussed.Results indicate that liquefying the soil inside the bucket of the foundation is more difficult than that outside the bucket during the excitation of seismic waves due to the large upper load and the restraint of the surrounding hoop.This finding confirms the advantages of the three-bucket jacket foundations in improving the liquefaction resistance of the soil inside the bucket.However,the confinement has a barely noticeable impact on the nearby soil outside the skirt.The phenomenon of soil liquefaction at the bottom of the skirt occurred earlier than that in other positions during the seismic excitation,and the excess pore water pressure slowly dissipated.The acceleration amplification coefficient of the sand outside the bucket increases with depth,but that of the sand inside the bucket is substantially inhibited in the height range of the bucket foundation.This result proves the inhibition effects of the three-bucket jacket foundations on the seismic responses of soils.The liquefied soil layer has a significant effect in absorbing a certain amount of seismic wave energy and reducing the amplification effect.The numerical simulation results are consistent with the phenomenon and data measured during the shaking table test.The current study also verifies the feasibility of the excess pore water pressure ratio and the anti-liquefaction shear stress method for judging soil liquefaction.

Seismic performances of dyke on liquefiable soils

Various field investigations of earthquake disaster cases have confirmed that earthquake-induced liquefaction is a main factor causing significant damage to dyke,research on seismic performances of dyke is thus of great importance.In this paper,seismic responses of dyke on liquefiable soils were investigated by means of dynamic centrifuge model tests and three-dimensional（3D） effective stress analysis method which is based on a multiple shear mechanism model and a liquefaction front.For the prototype scale centrifuge tests,sine wave input motions with peak accelerations 0.806 m/s2,1.790 m/s2 and 3.133 m/s2 of varied amplitudes were adopted to study the seismic performances of dyke on the saturated soil layer foundation with relative density of approximately 30%.Then,corresponding numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the distribution and variations of deformation,acceleration,excess pore-water pressure（EPWP）,and behaviors of shear dilatancy in the dyke and the liquefiable soil foundation.Moreover,detailed discussions and comparisons between numerical simulations and centrifuge tests were also presented.It is concluded that the computed results have a good agreement with the measured results by centrifuge tests.The physical and numerical models both indicate that the dyke hosted on liquefiable soils subjected to earthquake motions has exhibited larger settlement and lateral spread：the stronger the motion is,the larger the dyke deformation is.Compared to soils in the deep ground under the dyke and the free field,the EPWP ratio is much smaller in the shallow liquefiable soil beneath the dyke in spite of large deformation produced.For the same overburden depth soil from free site and the liquefiable foundation beneath dyke,the characteristics of effective stress path and stress-strain relations are different.All these results may be of theoretical and practical significance for seismic design of the dyke on liquefiable soils.