• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.160-168
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• 2020

Depending on the water depth and composition of seabed, there exist different alternatives for the wind turbine supporting structures. Among several types of the structures, the monopile foundation is the dominant solution for support structure, accounting for over 80% of the offshore wind turbines in Europe. To develop the monopile foundation suitable for domestic ocean environment, a basic design of a transition piece was carried out. This paper presents the design procedure of a flange connected transition piece and results of the structural safety assessment.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.15 no.9
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• pp.47-58
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• 2014

This study explores methods for modeling the foundation-seabed interaction needed for the load analysis of an offshore wind energy system. It comprises the comparison study of foundation design load analyses for NREL 5 MW turbine according to various soil-foundation interaction models by conducting the load analysis with GH-Bladed, analysis software for offshore wind energy systems. Furthermore, the results of the aforementioned load analysis were applied to foundation analysis software called L-Pile to conduct a safety review of the foundation cross-section design. Differences in the cross-section of a monopile foundation were observed based on the results of the fixed model, winkler spring and coupled spring models, and the analysis of design load cases, including DLC 1.3, DLC 6.1a, and DLC 6.2a. Consequently, under all design load conditions, the diameter and thickness of the monopile foundation cross-section were found to be 7 m and 80 mm, respectively, using the fixed and coupled spring models; the results of the analysis conducted using the winkler spring model showed that the diameter and thickness of the monopile foundation cross-section were 5 m and 60 mm, respectively. The study found that the soil-foundation interaction modeling method had a significant impact on the load analysis results, which determined the cross-section of a foundation. Based on this study, it is anticipated that designing an offshore wind energy system foundation taking the above impact into account would reduce the possibility of a conservative or unconservative design of the foundation.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.31-38
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• 2022

Recently, the development of offshore wind farms based on past technical experiences from onshore wind turbine installations has become a worldwide issue. This study investigated the technical issues related to offshore wind farms and large-diameter monopiles from an economic perspective. In particular, the monopile foundation system (MFS), which is the most important part of the proposed fast construction system, is applied for the first time in Korea, and structural verification is essential because it supports large-diameter monopiles and is in charge of excavation. Therefore, in this study, a rapid construction system for large offshore wind power generators was introduced, and stability verification was performed through the structural analysis of the MFS.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.2C
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• pp.61-68
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• 2012

In general, verticality error necessarily occurs in marine pile foundation due to construction error or marine environmental effects. In marine structure, design by vertical load rather than horizontal load is dominant, but in the offshore wind turbine foundation, horizontal load is dominant. As the structure type that has dynamic movement by blade rotation, verticality error may have structurally significant effects. In this study, structural response feature of foundation and ground were analyzed according to verticality error of monopile foundation of 5MW offshore wind turbine. Marine environmental load was calculated per ISO standard and the margin of verticality error was calculated to be $L/{\infty}$(=0), L/300, L/200 and L/100. As a result of analysis, it was found that the maximum value of member force of the foundation with L/100 error increased about 7.2% compared to the monopile without verticality error.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.585-598
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• 2022

The monopile-friction wheel hybrid foundation is an innovative solution for offshore structures which are mainly subjected to large lateral eccentric load induced by winds, waves, and currents during their service life. This paper presents an extensive numerical analysis to investigate the lateral load and moment bearing performances of hybrid foundation, considering various potential influencing factors in sand-overlaying-clay soil deposits, with the complex lateral loads being simplified into a resultant lateral load acting at a certain height above the mudline. Finite element models are generated and validated against experimental data where very good agreements are obtained. The failure mechanisms of hybrid foundations under lateral loading are illustrated to demonstrate the effect of the friction wheel in the hybrid system. Parametric study shows that the load bearing performances of the hybrid foundation is significantly dependent of wheel diameter, pile embedment depth, internal friction angle of sand, loading eccentricity (distance from the load application point to the ground level), and the thickness of upper sandy layer. Simplified empirical formulae is proposed based on the numerical results to predict the corresponding lateral load and moment bearing capacities of the hybrid foundation for design application.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.281-287
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• 2017

In the case of fixed offshore wind turbines, scouring phenomena have been reported around sub-structures as a result of currents, which seriously damage the structural stability. A parametric study of the various sub-structures of a fixed offshore wind turbine was performed to investigate their effects on the scouring phenomena. For a suction bucket foundation and monopile, the effects of the stick-up heights and water depth were studied, respectively. The open source libraries, called OpenFOAM, were used to simulate a violent flow around a foundation. The numerical methods were selected based on a two-dimensional analysis of a suction bucket. Based on the results for various stick-up heights, a larger scouring region was observed with an increase in the stick-up height because of the down-wash flow around a foundation. Based on the results for various monopile water depths, the water depth had an insignificant effect on the scouring.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.667-681
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• 2015

The scour induced by strong currents and wave action decreases the embedded length of monopiles and leads to a decrease of their structural stability. The objective of this study is the development and consideration of scour-monitoring techniques for offshore monopile foundations. Tests on physical models are carried out with a model monopile and geo-materials prepared in a cylindrical tank. A strain gauge, two coupled ultrasonic transducers, and ten electrodes are used for monitoring the scour. The natural frequency, ultrasonic reflection images, and electrical resistivity profiles are obtained at various scour depths. The experimental results show that the natural frequency of the model monopile decreases with an increase in the scour depth and that the ultrasonic reflection images clearly detect the scour shape and scour depth. In addition, the electrical resistivity decreases with an increase in scour depth. This study suggests that natural frequency measurement, ultrasonic reflection imaging, and electrical resistivity profiling may be used as effective tools to monitor the scour around an offshore monopile foundation.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.06a
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• pp.480-485
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• 2009

Offshore wind energy is gaining more attention. Ensuring proper design of offshore wind turbines and wind farms require knowledge of the external conditions in which the turbines and associated facilities are to operate. In this work, a three-bladed 5MW upwind wind turbine, which is supported by the monopile foundation, is studied by use of fully coupled aero-hydro-servo-elastic commercial simulation tool, 'GH-Bladed'$^{(R)}$. Specification of the structures are chosen from the OC3 (Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration) under "IEA Wind Annex XXIII-subtask2". The primary external conditions due to wind and waves are simulated. Design Load case 5.2 is investigated in this work. The steady state power curve and power production loads are evaluated. Comparison between different codes is made.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.13 no.12
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• pp.91-98
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• 2012

In this paper, the behavior of offshore wind turbine(OWT) foundation which is modeled by using existing design method and FEM is compared. When the same type of foundation is designed under the same sea and ground condition, the behavior characteristics with each model are compared. As a result, the member forces between apparent fixity and distributed spring type foundation which consider the ground stiffness are not different markedly, while fixed-base type foundation shows relatively lower member forces, which results in smaller safety margin. In other words, considering ground stiffness is reasonable because soil-pile interaction affects significantly on the analysis result. A case study with a monopile shows significant errors between p-y and FEM model at the head and tip of the pile. Also, it shows that the errors at the tip with diameter increase of the pile is larger. Thus, considering ground characteristics and engineering judgment are necessary in practice. A comparison of reliability analysis between tripod and monopile type foundation on the same condition shows larger probability of failure in monopile type and it indicates that the safety margin of monopile type can be lower.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2010.09a
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• pp.486-493
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• 2010

Recently, it has been a worldwide issue to develop offshore wind farm based on the past technical experiences of onshore wind turbine installation. In Korea, the government has the wind-energy to be a new-sustainable field of development to bring green-growth in near future and put political and fiscal efforts to support the academic and industrial technical development. Especially, there are much advancement for the fields of turbine, blade, bearing, grid connection, ETC. Correspondingly, technical needs do exist for the offshore foundation installation techniques in geotechnical point of view. Within few years, 2~5MW offshore wind turbines will be constructed at about 30m water depth and it is known that monopiles of D=4~6m are suitable types of foundation. In order to construct offshore wind-turbine foundation, technical developments for drilling machine, design manual, monitoring&maintenance technique are required. This paper presents technical issues with related to offshore wind farm and large diameter monopile in the point of renewable energy development.