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Desiderata Geotechnica pp 193–204Cite as

On the Use of the Finite Element Method for the Design of Offshore Wind Turbine Foundations

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Abstract

This paper provides an introduction to the geotechnical design of Offshore Wind Turbine (OWT) foundations using the Finite Element Method (FEM). Procedures for incorporating the FEM in the design process are proposed under particular consideration of the practical application to commercial projects, where foundation design is done in a serial production. The proposed procedures allow to streamline the design process and enable to optimize the foundation geometries of OWTs under given time and resource constraints of typical Offshore Wind Farm (OWF) development projects. Advantages and disadvantages are discussed using the example of the design of Monopiles and Suction Caissons.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Although political aspects shall not be the concern of this paper, the latest auctions in UK and other European countries have clearly shown that the offshore wind industry is already today considerably cheaper than most other energy sources including nuclear energy.

  2. 2.

    In fact, it has been actually developed for Suction Caissons and was just recently applied to other similar shaped foundations, such as Monopiles.

References

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the valuable contributions from Ana M. Page and Kristoffer Skau, which developed the RedWin models for Monopiles and Suction Caissons, respectively. The financial support by the Norwegian Research Council and the industrial partners Statoil, Vattenfall and Statkraft through the project ‘Reducing cost of offshore wind by integrated structural and geotechnical design (REDWIN)’, grant no. 243984, is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI), Oslo, Norway

    Hendrik Sturm & Lars Andresen

Authors
  1. Hendrik Sturm
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  2. Lars Andresen
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Correspondence to Hendrik Sturm .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Geotechnik, Universität für Bodenkultur, Vienna, Austria

    Wei Wu

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Sturm, H., Andresen, L. (2019). On the Use of the Finite Element Method for the Design of Offshore Wind Turbine Foundations. In: Wu, W. (eds) Desiderata Geotechnica. Springer Series in Geomechanics and Geoengineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14987-1_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14987-1_23

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-14986-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-14987-1

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