Assessment of soil constitutive models to predict the response of offshore wind turbines subjected to lateral cyclic loads
Assessment of soil constitutive models to predict the response of offshore wind turbines subjected to lateral cyclic loads
Monopiles are the frequently used foundation types for offshore wind turbines (OWTs) to withstand the cyclic loads from wind and waves ensuring safe and reliable operation. Under such cyclic loads, strain accumulation occurs while the soil undergoes repeated loading and unloading cycles throughout the OWT’s lifespan. Such a mechanism, referred to as “ratcheting”, causes changes in soil properties and affects the performance of the OWT. Large accumulative displacements and rotations can cause fatigue damage and serviceability problems which may result in structural failure and operational disruptions. While a wide range of methods is available to predict the monotonic monopile response, limited advanced soil models are available to capture the complex mechanism of cyclic strain accumulation. Such models have different levels of accuracy, complexity, and parameter calibration process. Prior to assessing any boundary value problem, it is important to evaluate the performance of the soil constitutive models at the soil material level. This work presents a comparative numerical study of two state-of-the-art constitutive models for sands i.e., SANISAND-MS and PM4SAND, under triaxial test conditions via OpenSees and PLAXIS. A discussion on the model parameters, analysis settings, and the effect of the number of cycles in the response is presented.
Olgu Orakci; George Anoyatis; Stijn Francois; S. Chow; Yinghui Tian
18th European Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ECSMGE2024)
E - Environment, water and energy
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