Capacity and failure mechanism of monopile-wheel hybrid foundation in clay-overlaying-sand deposits under combined V–H-M loadings

Abstract

Innovative monopile-wheel hybrid foundations are proposed to enhance the lateral load and moment capacities of monopile for offshore wind systems. This paper presents a comprehensive numerical study on the bearing capacities of this hybrid foundation in clay-overlaying-sand soil conditions under combined V–H-M (vertical-horizontal-moment) loadings. Numerical models are generated and validated by comparing with laboratory experiment results and available centrifuge testing data on similar foundation systems. Parametric analysis is then carried out to quantify the effects of potential influencing factors on the failure mechanisms and bearing capacities of hybrid foundations, including the hybrid foundation geometry, soil properties, upper clay thickness, height of the lateral loading and pre-vertical load. It is found that in clay-overlaying-sand deposits, the hybrid system manifests totally different failure mechanism compared with that in uniform soil deposits. The thickness of the upper clay layer (Tc/L), within the practical range of Tc/L = 0.1–0.7, has a significant influence on the failure patterns and the bearing capacities of the hybrid system, and the proportion of bearing capacity provided by the pile and wheel is determined by the ratios of Dw/L and L/Dp. In addition, the failure envelopes in the V–H-M space manifests that the failure envelopes are shrank with the increase of the normalized vertical resistance, V/Vult, which is highly related to the clay layer thickness (Tc/L).