WP2: Advanced soil/pile interaction model

Much of the OC6 project will focus on characteristics related to floating wind turbines, due to the higher level of complexity and therefore uncertainty in the ability to model these systems. On the fixed-bottom, side, one of the areas with high uncertainty and significant impact is the ability to accurately model the interaction between the soil and the wind turbine foundation.

The characteristics of the soil/structure interaction can significantly affect the global response characteristics and design optimization for a fixed-bottom offshore wind turbine. To address this issue, the OC6 project will integrate and verify an advanced soil/structure interaction model, compared to what is presently included in most coupled offshore wind modeling tools.

In the REDWIN-project NGI has developed a dynamic library (.dll) that models the soil-foundation interaction in terms of the nonlinear stiffness, hysteretic damping, and degradation. The modelling approach has been validated against full-scale data from large-depth monopiles and shallow-depth bucket/caisson foundations during the REDWIN project.

The intent for this work package is to couple the developed .dll to the wind turbine modelling tools in the OC6 project, and verify the coupling by comparing to the results already examined within the REDWIN project.