Behavior of Mono Helical Pile Foundation in Clays under Combined Uplift and Lateral Loading Conditions

Abstract

Offshore wind energy development is driven by ongoing research and development to determine technological issues connected with offshore wind turbines. A fundamental design difficulty is the offshore wind turbine foundations. By far, one of the most commonly practiced foundation systems is mono helical pile foundations because of their simplicity and resilience. Most of the studies on mono helical piles were focused on granular soils and few studies were on clayey soils. However, mono helical piles in clayey soils under combined loading remain to be examined. Hence, a series of three-dimensional finite element analyses were carried out to predict the uplift and lateral capacity of the helical pile embedded in soft clay. The numerical model is verified using the results from the analytical results and a small-scale laboratory test. The verified model is used to simulate the helical pile behavior under the combined uplift and lateral loading condition considering the pile with a different number of helical plates. The results of the combined loading analyses reveal that the lateral capacity decreased when the pile was subjected to uplift load, and a maximum reduction of 12% is observed in mono helical piles provided with a single plate for an applied 50% of the ultimate uplift load. The influence of uplift load also increased the bending moment of the helical pile. Finally, it is suggested that the helical piles should be designed considering the aspects for combined loading conditions.