Experimental Study on the Sinking and Leveling of A Large-Capacity Offshore Wind Turbine Five-Bucket Foundation in Sand

As offshore wind farms expand into deeper and farther ocean regions and the unit capacity of offshore wind turbines(OWTs)increases,there is a pressing need for a new foundation structure that can accommodate deep-sea conditions and support large capacities while maintaining economical and safe.To meet this goal of integrated transportation and one-step installation,a novel five-bucket jacket foundation(FBJF),with its suction installation and leveling methods in sand,has been proposed,analyzed and experimentally studied.First,seepage failure experiments of the FBJF at various depths were conducted,and a formula for calculating the critical suction of seepage failure suitable for the FBJF in sand was chosen and recommended for use with a range of values for the permeability coefficient ratio.Second,through leveling experiments of the FBJF at different depths,the maximum adjustable leveling angle during the sinking process was defined using seepage failure and the adjustable leveling angle of the foundation as control criteria.Various leveling control strategies were proposed and verified.Finally,an automatic sinking and leveling control system for the FBJF was developed and experimentally verified for feasibility.

Research on the Critical Buckling Pressure of Bucket Foundations with Inner Compartments for Offshore Wind Turbines

In the process of suction penetration of bucket foundations with inner compartments for offshore wind turbines,most researches focus on soil seepage failure and soil plugs,while the buckling of foundations is rarely investigated.Therefore,theoretical calculation methods for critical buckling pressures of the skirt and bulkheads of the bucket foundation are first presented according to the stability theory of a cylindrical shell and the small deflection theory of a thin plate,respectively.Furthermore,two types of models with and without considering the skirt-soil interaction are developed for the calculation of critical buckling pressure of the bucket foundation.Taking a practical project as an example,theoretical and numerical methods are used to obtain the critical buckling pressures of a bucket foundation.In this work,the theoretical method and the finite element model considering the skirt-soil interaction for calculating the critical buckling pressure of bucket foundations are firstly proposed.The results can help to optimize the design process of offshore wind turbine foundations and improve the safety of offshore wind power systems.

Local Scour Mechanisms and Prediction Methods Around Offshore Wind Turbine Foundations:Insights and Future Directions

Local scour around offshore wind turbine foundations presents a considerable challenge due to its potential influence on structural stability,driven by hydrodynamic forces.While research has made strides in comprehending scouring mechanisms,notable complexities persist,specifically with newer foundation types.Addressing these limitations is vital for advancing our understanding of scour mechanisms and for improving mitigation strategies in offshore wind energy development.This review synthesizes current findings on local scour across various offshore foundations,encompassing field observations,data-driven approaches,turbulence-sediment interactions,scour evolution processes,influencing factors,and numerical model advancements.The objective is to enrich our understanding of local scour mechanisms.In addition,future research directions are outlined,including the development of robust arti-ficial intelligence models for accurate predictions,the exploration of vortex structure characteristics,and the refinement of numerical models to strengthen prediction capabilities while minimizing computational efforts.

Hydrodynamic Characteristics of Three-Bucket Jacket Foundation for Offshore Wind Turbines During the Lowering Process

The three-bucket jacket foundation is a new type of foundation for offshore wind turbine that has the advantages of fast construction speed and suitability for deep water. The study of the hoisting and launching process is of great significance to ensure construction safety in actual projects. In this paper, a new launching technology is proposed that is based on the foundation of the three-bucket jacket for offshore wind turbine. A complete time domain simulation of the launching process of three-bucket jacket foundation is carried out by a theoretical analysis combined with hydrodynamic software Moses. At the same time, the effects of different initial air storage and sea conditions on the motion response of the structure and the hoisting cable tension are studied. The results show that the motion response of the structure is the highest when it is lowered to 1.5 times the bucket height. The natural period of each degree of freedom of the structure increases with the increase of the lowering depth. The structural motion response and the hoisting cable tension vary greatly in the early phases of Stages Ⅰ and Ⅲ, smaller in Stage Ⅱ, and gradually stabilize in the middle and late phases of Stage Ⅲ.

Towing characteristics of large-scale composite bucket foundation for offshore wind turbines

In order to study the towing dynamic properties of the large-scale composite bucket foundation the hydrodynamic software MOSES is used to simulate the dynamic motion of the foundation towed to the construction site.The MOSES model with the prototype size is established as the water draft of 5 and 6 m under the environmental conditions on site.The related factors such as towing force displacement towing accelerations in six degrees of freedom of the bucket foundation and air pressures inside the bucket are analyzed in detail.In addition the towing point and wave conditions are set as the critical factors to simulate the limit conditions of the stable dynamic characteristics.The results show that the large-scale composite bucket foundation with reasonable subdivisions inside the bucket has the satisfying floating stability.During the towing process the air pressures inside the bucket obviously change little and it is found that the towing point at the waterline is the most optimal choice.The characteristics of the foundation with the self-floating towing technique are competitive for saving lots of cost with few of the expensive types of equipment required during the towing transportation.

Bearing Capacity and Technical Advantages of Composite Bucket Foundation of Offshore Wind Turbines

Based on mechanical characteristics such as large vertical load, large horizontal load, large bending moment and complex geological conditions, a large scale composite bucket foundation （CBF） is put forward. Both the theoretical analysis and numerical simulation are employed to study the bearing capacity of CBF and the relationship between loads and ground deformation. Furthermore, monopile, high-rise pile cap, tripod and CBF designs are compared to analyze the bearing capacity and ground deformation, with a 3-MW wind generator as an example. The resuits indicate that CBF can effectively bear horizontal load and large bending moment resulting from upper structures and environmental load.

Design of Large-Scale Prestressing Bucket Foundation for Offshore Wind Turbines

The key in the force transmission between the tower and the foundation for offshore wind turbines is to transfer the large moment and horizontal loads. The finite element model of a large-scale prestressing bucket founda- tion for offshore wind turbines is set up and the structural characteristics of the arc transition structure of the founda- tion are analyzed for 40-60 channels(20-30 rows) arranged with prestressing steel strand under the same ultimate load and boundary conditions. The mechanical characteristics of the key parts of the foundation structures are illus- trated by the peak of the principal tensile stress, the peak of the principal compressive stress and the distribution areas where the principal tensile stress is larger than 2.00 MPa. It can be concluded that the maximum principal tensile stress of the arc transition decreases with the increasing number of channels, and the amplitude does not change signifi- cantly; the maximum principal compressive stress increases with the increasing number of channels and the amplitude changes significantly; however, for the distribution areas where the principal tensile stress is larger than 2.00 MPa, with different channel numbers, the phenomenon is not obvious. Furthermore, the principal tensile stress at the top of the foundation beams fluctuantly increases with the increasing number of channels and for the top cover of the bucket, the principal tensile stress decreases with the increasing number of channels.

Failure Envelopes of Wide-Shallow Composite Bucket Foundation for Offshore Wind Turbines in Silty Sand

The wide-shallow composite bucket foundation(WSCBF) is a new type of offshore wind power foundation that can be built on land and rapidly installed offshore, there by effectively reducing the construction time and costs of offshore wind power foundation. In this study, the horizontal bearing capacity is calculated by finite element simulation and compared with test results to verify the validity of results. In this process, the vertical load and bending load are respectively calculated by the finite element simulation. Under the vertical load effect, the bucket foundation and the soil inside are regarded as a whole, and the corresponding buckling failure mode is obtained. The ultimate vertical bearing capacity is calculated using empirical and theoretical formulas; the theoretical formula is also revised by finite element results. Under bending load, the rotational center of the composite bucket foundation(in a region close to the bucket bottom) gradually moves from the left of the central axis(reverse to loading direction) to the nearby compartment boards along the loading direction. The H–M envelope line shows a linear relationship, and it is determined that the vertical and bending ultimate bearing capacities can be improved by an appropriate vertical load.

Influential Factors of Bucket Foundation for Offshore Wind Turbine

In this paper, the influential design thctors of wide-shallow composite bucket foundation for 3 MW off- shore wind turbine are systematically studied by numerical simulation. The results show that the bucket diameter is larger than 27 m in generak and the range of 7--12 m is appropriate for cylinder height. In particular the bucket foun- dation with diameter of 30 m and cylinder height of 10 m is suitable for most soils. Under ultimate loads, the bucket diameter and elasticity modulus of soil have major effects on the deibrmability of bucket foundation, while the influ- ence of friction coefficient between the bucket and soil is relatively slight.

Experimental Study on Tilt Adjustment Technique of Tripod Bucket Jacket Foundation for Offshore Wind Turbine in Sand

For the tripod bucket jacket foundations used in offshore wind turbines, the probable critical tilt angles should be avoidedduring tilt adjustment operation. Thus, these critical values must be identified by engineers, and remedial techniques mustbe established prior to the occurrence of the problem. Model tests were carried out for typical tilting conditions of tripodbucket foundations, which were allowed to tilt freely at various penetration depths without interruption by manualoperation. After the foundation ceased its tilting, some measures, such as water pumping, water injection, air injection, or acombination of the above methods, were enabled for adjustment. The research results showed two critical values in thetilting state of the tripod bucket jacket foundation, namely the terminal and allowable angles. In the installation condition,the terminal angle was negatively correlated with the initial penetration depth, but the opposite was observed with theremoval condition. The allowable angle was less than or equal to the terminal angle. The allowable angle in the installationwas related to the terminal angle. The critical angles all varied linearly with the initial penetration depth. When tiltingduring installation, adjustment measures can be used in the order of high drum pumping, low drum water injection, highdrum pumping and low drum water injection, air injection, and exhaust. When tilting during removal, the sequential use oflow drum water injection, air, and exhaust was applied. For buckets that were sensitive to angle changes, adjustmentmeasures of the “point injection” mode can be selected.

Load Transferring Mechanism on Transition Section of Composite Bucket Foundation for Offshore Wind Turbines

The composite bucket foundation (CBF) is a new kind of foundation which has been applied in the offshore wind industry. A reasonable connection pattern between the tower and the CBF top cover is crucial for load transmissions from the superstructure. Therefore, it is essential to choose an optimum structure type for the transition section. The line type and the arc transition section models were established by ABAQUS, and the internal forces of cross section were extracted along the height direction. Specifically, the force transfer mechanism for different types of the transition sections was investigated comparatively with monotonic as well as composite loadings. The results show that the curved transition structure exhibits the better mechanical characteristics under the monotonic and composite loadings, and the reason can be illustrated that its specific arc-shape structure can effectively convert the tremendous bending moment from the turbine tower into the limited tensile and compressive stresses downwards, without the occurrence of force concentration. © 2017, Tianjin University and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.

Seismic Centrifuge Modelling of Offshore Wind Turbine with Tripod Foundation

The development of offshore wind energy is fast as it is clean, safe and of high efficiency. The harsh marine environment raises high demand on the foundation design of offshore wind turbine. Earthquake loading is one of the most significant factors which should be considered in the design phase. In this paper, a group of earthquake centrifuge tests were conducted on a physical wind turbine model with tripod foundation. The seismic responses of both wind turbine model and foundation soil were analyzed in terms of the recorded accelerations, pore water pressures, lateral displacements and settlements. The results were also compared with those measured in the previous research on mono-pile foundation. It is demonstrated that the tripod foundation can provide better resistance in the lateral displacement and structural settlement under earthquake loading.

Application of Converted Displacement for Modal Parameter Identification of Offshore Wind Turbines with High-Pile Foundation

In the actual measurement of offshore wind turbines(OWTs),the measured accelerations usually contain a large amount of noise due to the complex and harsh marine environment,which is not conducive to the identification of structural modal parameters.For OWTs with remarkably low structural modal frequencies,displacements can effectively suppress the high-frequency vibration noise and amplify the low-frequency vibration of the structure.However,finding a reference point to measure structural displacements at sea is difficult.Therefore,only a few studies on the use of dynamic displacements to identify the modal parameters of OWTs with high-pile foundations are available.Hence,this paper develops a displacement conversion strategy to study the modal parameter identification of OWTs with high-pile foundations.The developed strategy can be divided into the following three parts:zero-order correction of measured acceleration,high-pass filtering by the Butterworth polynomial,and modal parameter identification using the calculated displacement.The superiority of the proposed strategy is verified by analyzing a numerical OWT with a high-pile foundation and the measured accelerations from an OWT with a high-pile foundation.The results show that for OWTs with high-pile foundations dominated by low frequencies,the developed strategy of converting accelerations into displacements and then performing modal parameter identification is advantageous to the identification of modal parameters,and the results have high accuracy.

Seismic Behavior of Offshore Wind Turbine with Gravity Foundation

The development of offshore wind energy becomes very fast in recent years due to its clean, safe, and high efficiency. However, the issue that quite a few offshore wind farms have been built in seismic active areas raises a great engineering challenge for the selection, design, and seismic evaluation of offshore wind turbine foundations. Earthquake is one of the most critical hazards for offshore wind turbines. The softening of soil due to pore water pressure buildup can sharply reduce the bearing capacity of the foundation, and consequently result in stability failure. The induced strong structural vibration has adverse impact on the normal operation of wind turbine as well as on the efficiency of power generation. In this study, a group of earthquake centrifuge tests was performed on a physical model of a wind turbine with gravity foundation. The seismic behavior of both the structure and the foundation soil was analyzed based on the recorded accelerations, pore water pressures, lateral displacements and settlements. The emphasis was on the interaction between foundation and soil. The results showed that gravity foundation can effectively resist the overturning moment induced by the superstructure. However, it was quite sensitive to the subsoil conditions. The large settlement and tilt in the offshore foundation might affect the performance of a wind turbine.

Stability Study on the Bucket Foundation with Multi-Compartment During the Floating-up Process Considering Air Compressibility

In the process of developing offshore wind power towards deeper waters,the advantages of the bucket foundation in terms of integrated construction and economy are becoming increasingly evident.In contrast to conventional floating bodies,the air-floating bucket foundations can achieve self-floating with the help of the air in the compartment and adjust its buoyancy and stability by controlling the air volume in the compartment.The construction process of the bucket foundation involves the control of air in the compartment,thus making it more difficult to construct.Especially after the prefabrication of the bucket foundation,the stability of the bucket foundation at the floating-up stage is particularly critical.The stability of a multi-compartment bucket foundation during the floating-up process cannot be accurately evaluated as the existing theoretical method of air-floating structures does not adequately consider air compressibility.To ensure the safety of the floating-up process,a theoretical method based on the idea of intact stability has been developed to analyze the stability of the air-floating bucket foundations,which will allow accurate calculation of the righting arm for different tilt states and critical air leakage angle.At the same time,accuracy and feasibility of the proposed theoretical method are verified through indoor model tests and practical operation of the prototype structure during the floating-up process.In addition,measures to enhance the stability of the bucket foundation are proposed through sensitivity analysis of influencing factors.

Experimental Investigation of Local Scour Around A New Pile-Group Foundation for Offshore Wind Turbines in Bi-Directional Current

The local scour around a new pile-group foundation of offshore wind turbine subjected to a bi-directional current was physically modeled with a bi-directional flow flume. In a series of experiments, the flow velocity and topography of the seabed were measured based on a system composed of plane positioning equipment and an ADV.Experimental results indicate that the development of the scour hole was fast at the beginning, but then the scour rate decreased until reaching equilibrium. Erosion would occur around each pile of the foundation. In most cases, the scour pits were connected in pairs and the outside widths of the scour holes were larger than the inner widths. The maximum scour depth occurred at the side pile of the foundation for each test. In addition, a preliminary investigation shows that the larger the flow velocity, the larger the scour hole dimensions but the shorter equilibrium time. The field maximum scour depth around the foundation was obtained based on the physical experiments with the geometric length scales of 1:27.0, 1:42.5 and 1:68.0, and it agrees with the scour depth estimated by the HEC-18 equation.

Motion Characteristics of Novel Floating Foundation for Offshore Wind Turbine

A novel floating foundation to support the NREL offshore 5 MW wind turbine was designed conceptually by combining the characteristics of barge and Spar. The main focus was structural design and hydrodynamic modelling. Based on this novel floating foundation, the hydrodynamic performance was investigated in the frequency domain and time domain by using the wave analysis software Hydro D and Deep C from Det Norske Veritas. The frequency domain analysis was conducted to investigate the effects of the incident wave angle and water depth. The time-domain analysis was carried out to evaluate the response of the floating foundation under a selected operational condition. The hydrodynamic performances of this floating foundation with respect to time series and response spectra were also investigated in this study.

Dynamic responses research of offshore wind turbine tripod foundation and upper structure

In order to obtain the performance of the offshore wind turbine tripod foundation, a tripod foundation model was built by ANSYS. The static analysis, modal analysis and the transient dynamic analysis were run. Different parameters such as displacement, velocity, acceleration, stress were obtained and by analyzing these data, it is reasonable to draw a conclusion that the tripod foundation has a good performance used on the offshore wind turbine.

Coupled Time-Domain Investigation on a Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Supported on a Floating Platform

The dynamic responses of a floating vertical axis wind turbine(VAWT)are assessed on the basis of an aero-hydro-mooring coupled model.The aerodynamic loads on the rotor are acquired with double-multiple stream tube method.First-and second-order wave loads are calculated on the basis of 3D potential theory.The mooring loads are simulated by catenary theory.The coupled model is established,and a numerical code is programmed to investigate the dynamic response of the semi-submersible VAWT.A model test is then conducted,and the numerical code is validated considering the hydrodynamic performance of the floating buoy.The responses of the floating VAWT are studied through the numerical simulation under the sea states of wind and regular/irregular waves.The effects of the second-order wave force on the motions are also investigated.Results show that the slow-drift responses in surge and pitch motions are significantly excited by the second-order wave forces.Furthermore,the effect of foundation motion on aerodynamic loads is examined.The normal and tangential forces of the blades demonstrate a slight increase due to the coupling effect between the buoy motion and the aerodynamic loads.

Dynamic Simulation on Collision Between Ship and Offshore Wind Turbine

By using ABAQUS/Explicit, the dynamic process of an offshore wind turbine(OWT) stricken by a ship of 5000DWT in the front direction is simulated. The OWT is located on a large-scale prestressing bucket foundation constructed by an integrated installation technique. According to the simulation results, under the ship collision, a certain range of plastic zone appears within a local area of arc transition structure of the bucket foundation, and the concrete plastic zone is seriously damaged. As the stress level of OWT tower is relatively low, the OWT tower is less affected. A great inertial force is generated at the top of the OWT tower as the mass of nacelle and blades is up to 400 t. The displacement of the tower is in the opposite direction of the ship collision at the end of 1 s under the action of inertial force. There is only a minor damage in the ship bow. Most of the kinetic energy is transformed into the plastic dissipation and absorbed by the arc transition structure of bucket foundation.