The Effect of Lateral Loading Parameters on Monopile Behavior Based on Physical Modeling

Monopiles are the most common type of foundation for offshore wind turbines (OWT). Monopiles have been used in more than 80% of the offshore wind turbines. A monopile will be affected by millions of lateral load cycles during the operating period, which will cause its rotation and lateral deformation. The rotation and the deformation are dependent on the soil properties, monopile specification, and lateral loading characteristics. Current methods are only for the design of piles with less than 1meter in diameter. Due to this fact that monopiles are hollow cylindrical steel tubes with a diameter of 2 to 8 meters, in this research the behavior of these structures due to monotonic and cyclic lateral loads in sandy soils has been studied by physical modeling in a geotechnical centrifuge. One monotonic test and six cyclic tests were designed and implemented to investigate the effect of lateral load characteristics. According to the results of 7 tests, the effect of different loading parameters on monopile cumulative displacement and soil stiffness is discussed.
In all tests, the monopile deflection is a rigid body, and the cumulative displacement of the monopile head is increasing with power functions. Also, the monopile stiffness in terms of the number of cycles is ascending, and the rate of the increase is decreasing.