Soil Structure interaction of Laterally Loaded Piles

Abstract

The rapid development of the global economy has led to an increased energy demand throughout the world. More than 70% of the world’s energy consumption is from the use of fossil fuels. In the wake of rising global temperatures and increased carbon emissions, policymakers across the globe think about alternate and renewable ways of energy generation, among which wind energy is a promising energy source. Offshore wind turbines are new technologies and are challenging when it comes to their installation in harsh ocean environment as they are subjected to environmental loads caused by wind, wave and currents. These loads are then transferred to foundation. Monopiles are the most common foundations used in offshore wind turbines today and therefore its analysis is important. Monopiles are single large diameter tubular steel piles of diameter 3–7 m driven into the seabed with typical penetration depth of 25–30 m, and are subjected to lateral dynamic loads. Soil structure interaction of monopile is an important aspect to be considered in its design and for the present study, PLAXIS 3D geotechnical software is used for the soil-pile interaction and the corresponding displacement behaviour of the pile under study. The dynamic analysis due to the wave forces on the monopile is carried out using wave data off Gulf of Mannar, near the Tamil Nadu coast, and the embedment length of the pile is varied to study the effect of diameter of pile and embedment length on the displacement characteristics of the pile.