• Journal of Korean Society of Steel Construction
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.421-430
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• 2013

To predict behaviors of offshore wind turbines which are highly laterally loaded structures and to design them rationally, evaluating the soil-foundation interaction is important. Nowadays, there are many soil modeling methods for structural analysis of general structures subjected to vertical loads, but using the methods without any consideration for design of a monopile foundation is eschewed because it might cause wrong structural design due to the deferent loading state. In this paper, we identify the differences of the member forces and displacements by design methods. The results show that fixed end method is barely suitable for monopile design in terms of checking the serviceability because it underestimate the lateral displacement. Fixed end method and stiffness matrix method underestimate the member forces, whereas virtual fixed end method overestimates them. The results of p-y curve method and coefficient of subgrade reaction method are similar to the results of 3D soil modeling method, and 2D soil modeling method overestimates the displacement and member forces as compared with other methods.