Soil response around Donghai offshore wind turbine foundation, China

Abstract

Donghai offshore wind farm next to Shanghai is the first and largest commercial operating offshore wind energy system in China that adopts a high-rising structure foundation. This paper consists of two parts. Details are presented of this wind farm project, site conditions and related engineering solutions in the first part. Then, in the second part, a three-dimensional porous model, based on Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes equations and Biot's poro-elastic theory, is developed by integrating three-dimensional wave and seabed models to simulate the wave-induced seabed response around the high-rising structure foundation. A parametric study of the effects of the wave and seabed characteristics on the soil response around the wind turbine foundation is conducted. Results concluded from the numerical analysis are as follows: (a) the existence of the structure has a significant effect on the wave transformation and the distribution of wave-induced pore pressure; (b) the magnitude of wave-induced pore pressure increases as wave height or wave period increases. In addition to the current design of the Donghai offshore wind farm with high-rising structure foundation, a gravity-based foundation is also considered and results are compared with those for the high-rising structure foundation.