Study on Effects of the Scouring on Horizontal Bearing Capacity of the Composite Bucket Foundation

Abstract

Composite bucket foundation is a new kind of wide-shallow foundation for offshore wind turbines, and can be made on land, transported and installed by one step. Compared with other deep pile foundations, the erosion caused by waves and currents is more obvious and this would cause more risks for the overall safety of the wind turbine. In order to know more about it, a 3D FEM composite bucket foundation - soil model is established using Abaqus in this paper. In this study, the lateral bearing capacity of composite bucket foundation in different situation is analyzed by FEM and the results of FEM have been compared with that of physical model test. And through anther model test, the size parameters of scouring pit are obtained. Then the emergence and development of scouring pits are simulated by continuously excavating soil. The horizontal bearing capacity of a practical project is calculated considering the influence of scouring on the CBF by the displacement loading mode. The calculation results show that the horizontal bearing capacity of the bucket foundation is significantly reduced after scouring, and the influence of scour depth is more significant than the scouring extent.