Centrifuge modelling of screw piles for offshore wind energy foundations

Davidson, C.; Al-Baghdadi, T.; Brown, M.J.; Knappett, J.; Brennan, A.; Augarde, C.E.; Wang, L.; Coombs, W.M.; Richards, D.; Blake, A.; Ball, J.

Abstract

Screw piles (helical piles) can provide a viable, cost-effective and low-noise installation alternative to increasing the size of existing foundation solutions (e.g. monopiles) to meet the demand for the advancement of offshore wind energy into deeper water. Significant upscaling of widely used onshore screw pile geometries will be required to meet the loading conditions of a jacket supported offshore wind turbine. This increase in size will lead to greater installation force and torque. This paper presents preliminary results from centrifuge tests investigating the requirements to install screw piles designed for an offshore wind energy application using specially developed equipment. Results indicate that the equipment is suitable to investigate these screw pile requirements and that significant force is required for such upscaled screw piles, with 19 MN vertical force and 7 MNm torque for the standard design. Optimisation of the screw pile geometry, reduced these forces by 29 and 11% for the vertical and rotational forces respectively.

Citation

Davidson, C., Al-Baghdadi, T., Brown, M., Knappett, J., Brennan, A., Augarde, C., Wang, L., Coombs, W., Richards, D., Blake, A., & Ball, J. (2018, July). Centrifuge modelling of screw piles for offshore wind energy foundations. Presented at 9th International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics (ICPMG 2018), London, UK

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: 9th International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics (ICPMG 2018)
• Start Date: Jul 17, 2018
• End Date: Jul 20, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Jul 3, 2018
• Publication Date: Jul 3, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jul 25, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 3, 2019
• Pages: 695-700
• Book Title: Physical modelling in geotechnics : proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics (ICPMG 2018), July 17-20, 2018, London, United Kingdom. Volume 1.
• ISBN: 9781138344198
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1146288
• Publisher URL: http://www.routledge.com/9781138344198