• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.28 no.4
• /
• pp.261-267
• /
• 2014

Because a change in the natural frequencies of a structure indicates structural health problems, monitoring the natural frequencies crucial. Long-term measurement for the Uldolmok tidal current power plant structure has shown that its natural frequencies fluctuate with a constant cycle twice a day. In this study, lab-scale tests to investigate the causes of these natural frequency fluctuations were carried out in a circulating water channel. Three independent variables in the tests that could affect the fluctuation of the natural frequencies were the water level, current velocity, and boundary condition between the specimen and the bottom of the circulating water channel. The experimental results were verified with numerical ones using ABAQUS. It was found that the fluctuation of the natural frequencies was governed by a decrease in stiffness due to the boundary condition much more than the effect of added mass. In addition, it was found that the natural frequency would decrease with an increase in the tidal current velocity because of its nonlinearity when the boundary condition was severely deteriorated due to damage.

• Journal of the Korean Geosynthetics Society
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.21-31
• /
• 2014

Recently, the research on renewable energy against depletion of fossil fuel have been actively carried out in the world. Especially, offshore wind turbines are very economical and innovative technology. However, offshore wind turbines experience large base moments due to the wind and wave loading, so the monopile with large diameter needs to be applied. For the economical design of the large diameter pile, it is important to consider the flexibility of the foundation to estimate the maximum moment accurately, based on studies conducted so far. In this paper, the foundation was modeled using the finite element method in order to better describe the large diameter effect of a monopile and the results were compared with those of p-y method. For the examples studied in this paper, the change in maximum moment was insignificant, but the maximum tilt angle from the finite element method was over 14% larger than that of p-y method. Therefore, the finite element approach is recommended to model the flexibility effect of the pile when large tilt angles may cause serviceability issues.