• Earthquakes and Structures
• /
• v.10 no.5
• /
• pp.1143-1179
• /
• 2016

Offshore wind turbines are considered as a fundamental part to develop substantial, alternative energy sources. In this highly flexible structures, monopiles are usually used as support foundations. Since the monopiles are large diameter (3.5 to 7 m) deep foundations, they result in extremely stiff short monopiles where the slenderness (length to diameter) may range between 5 and 10. Consequently, their elastic deformation patterns under lateral loading differ from those of small diameter monopiles usually employed for supporting structures in offshore oil and gas industry. For this reason, design recommendations (API and DNV) are not appropriate for designing foundations for offshore wind turbine structures as they have been established on the basis of full-scale load tests on long, slender and flexible piles. Furthermore, as these facilities are very sensitive to rotations and dynamic changes in the soil-pile system, the accurate prediction of monopile head displacement and rotation constitutes a design criterion of paramount importance. In this paper, the Fourier Series Aided Finite Element Method (FSAFEM) is employed for the determination of static impedance functions of monopiles for OWT subjected to horizontal force and/or to an overturning moment, where a non-homogeneous soil profile has been considered. On the basis of an extensive parametric study, and in order to address the problem of head stiffness of short monopiles, approximate analytical formulae are obtained for lateral stiffness $K_L$, rotational stiffness $K_R$ and cross coupling stiffness $K_{LR}$ for both rough and smooth interfaces. Theses expressions which depend only on the values of the monopile slenderness $L/D_p$ rather than the relative soil/monopile rigidity $E_p/E_s$ usually found in the offshore platforms designing codes (DNV code for example) have been incorporated in the expressions of the OWT natural frequency of four wind farm sites. Excellent agreement has been found between the computed and the measured natural frequencies.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
• /
• v.13 no.4
• /
• pp.437-448
• /
• 2000

In this study, a numerical analysis method for soil-pile interaction in frequency domain problem is presented. The total soil-pile interaction system is divided into two parts so called near field and far field. In the near field, beam elements are used lot a pile and plain strain finite elements for soil. In the far field, dynamic fundamental solution for multi-layered half planes based on boundary element formulation is adopted lot soil. These two fields are coupled using FE-BE coupling technique. In order to verify the proposed soil-pile interaction analysis, the dynamic responses of pile on multi-layered half planes are simulated and the results are compared with the experimental results. Also, various numerical analyses of piles considering different conditions of soil-pile interaction system are performed to examine the dynamic behavior of the system. It has been found that the developed method which satisfies the radiation conditions of multi-layered half planes can be applied to various structure systems effectively in frequency domain.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.75-91
• /
• 2014

In this study the analysis is performed for influencing factors on the behavior of rigid piles (short pile) by research papers and case study. The results indicated that the point of virtual fixity should be calculated considering the relative stiffness of soil and pile, and Chang (1937) and P-Y method estimated the similar fixity. The values of ultimate resistances of a vertical pile to a lateral load are different for laboratory and field tests in cohesive soils and its ultimate values in laboratory tests are underestimated and in field tests are under or overestimated. The estimated resistance by Hansen (1961)'s method is similar to the value of field tests. The horizontal resistances to laterally loaded pile in cohesionless soils are overestimated in laboratory tests and generally overestimated in field tests. The ultimate resistances by Zhang (2005)'s method, used to the empirical distribution of the resistance, are similar to the test results. In the paper the calculating method and distribution of the ultimate resistance in cohesive soils are proposed. The estimated value by the proposed method is closer to the test results than any other method of calculating ultimate resistance of the piles embedded into cohesive soils.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.15 no.6
• /
• pp.29-44
• /
• 1999

This paper shows the results of model tests on the lateral behavior of single rigid pile, which was constructed by driving, in homogeneous and non-homogeneous (two layered) NakDong River sands. The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the effect of ratio of lower layer thickness to embedded pile length, relative density of sand and pile construction conditions (Driven & Embedded piles) on the characteristics of lateral behavior of single pile. These effects can be quantified only by the results of model tests. As a model result, the lateral behavior depends upon the pile construction condition in loose-density soil more than in high-density soil. If the pile construction depends upon driving construction, the decrease of deflection remarkably increases for both loose homogeneous sand and non-homogeneous soil$(E_{h1}/E_{h2}/=0.18)$ with high thickness of upper layer but the decrease of maximum bending moment shows the opposite result to the decrease of deflection. And, with respect to deflection, it was found that the deflection ratio $(y_{Driven}y_{Embedded})$ of embedded to driven piles has the ranges of 0.65 - 0.88 $(D_r=90%)$0.38 - 0.65 $(D_r=61.8%)$ for each relative density of homogeneous soil and the range of 0.6 - 0.88 for non-homogeneous soil. Also, in this study, the experimental equation for the effects of drop height (DH) and H/L on the ratios of $y_D/y_E\; and MBM_D/MBM_ E$ is suggested from model tests.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.53-64
• /
• 2003

Many transmission towers, high-rise buildings and bridges are constructed near steep slopes and are supported by large-diameter piles. These structures may be subjected to large lateral loads, such as violent winds and earthquakes. Widely used types of foundations for these structures are pier foundations, which have large-diameters with high stiffness. The behavior of a pier foundation subjected to lateral loads is similar to that of a short rigid pile because both elements seem to fail by rotation developing passive resistance on opposite faces above and below the rotation point, unlike the behavior of a long flexible pile. This paper describes the results of several numerical studies performed with a three-dimensional finite element method (FEM) of model tests of a laterally loaded short pile located near slopes, respectively. In this paper, the results of model tests of single piles and pile groups subjected to lateral loading, in homogeneous sand with 30$^{\circ}$ slopes and horizontal ground were analyzed by the 3-D FE analyses. The pile was assumed to be linearly elastic. The sand was assumed to have non-associative characteristics, following the MC-DP model. The failure criterion is governed by the Mohr-Coulomb equation and the plastic potential is given by the Drucker-Prager equation. The main purpose of this paper is the validation of the 3-D elasto-plastic FEM by comparisons with the experimental data.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.15 no.6
• /
• pp.167-185
• /
• 1999

A series of model tests was performed to find the characteristics of lateral behavior of single rigid pile. This paper shows the results of model tests on the lateral behavior of single rigid driven pile in non-homogeneous(two layered) Nak-Dong River sands. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the ratio of lower layer thickness to embedded pile length, the coefficient ratio of the subgrade reaction and the pile construction conditions(driven & embedded piles) on the characteristics of lateral behavior of single pile. The results of model tests show that the lateral behavior in non-homogeneous soil depends upon drop energy considerably, that is, in the case of H/L=0.75, as the drop energy increases three times the decrease percentage increases about 2.12 times. In the driven pile with non-homogeneous soil of $E_{h1}/E_{h2}=5.56$, the effect of upper layer with large stiffness on the decrease of lateral deflection is remarkably smaller than embedded pile. In non-homogeneous soil, the maximum bending moment of driven pile is in the range of 100 132% in comparison with embedded pile. The reason is that the stiffness of soil around pile increases with drop vibration and so the pile behavior is similar to the flexible pile behavior by means of the increase of relative stiffness of pile, In this paper, the experimental equations for lateral load and H/L on $y_D/y_E \; & \; MBM_D/MBM_E$ are suggested from model tests.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
• /
• v.23 no.6
• /
• pp.37-51
• /
• 2007

In this study, pile load tests have been carried out to develop new P-y curves and then, to investigate the effects of pile rigidities on laterally loaded offshore drilled shafts in Incheon marine clay. This paper consists mainly of two parts: the first part, performance of a series of lateral load tests on small- and full-scale piles under one- and two-way loadings and the second part, comparison between the measured and predicted results by using O'Neill's and Matlock's clay models. Based on the results obtained, it is shown that relatively good agreements in bending moments and lateral displacements were obtained between the measured results using calculated P-y curves and predicted ones by O'Neill's and Matlock's clay models. The cases were considered with varying rigidity factors based on pile diameter, length and subgrade soil reaction. Through comparisons, it is found that soil P-y curve influences highly the behavior of flexible pile rather than that of rigid pile.