Drainage conditions around monopiles in sand

Abstract

Large diameter monopiles are typical foundation solutions for offshore wind turbines. In design of the monopile foundations in sand, it is necessary to understand the drainage conditions of the foundation soil under the design loading conditions as the soil performance (strength and stiffness) is highly dependent on the drainage conditions. This paper presents a numerical investigation into this issue, with a purpose to develop a simple design criterion for assessing the soil drainage conditions around a monopile in sand. It is found that for typical monopile foundations in sand, the drainage condition during a single load cycle is generally expected to be undrained. However, the current state-of-practice uses p-y springs derived for drained soil responses for monopile design. The impact of this discrepancy on monopile foundation design was evaluated and found to be insignificant due to the relatively low level of loading as compared to the capacity of the soil.