• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.91-100
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• 2012

Wireless monitoring system for the structural health evaluation has a limit to the reliability of measured response. The objective of this study is to evaluate an effective measurement range of the wireless monitoring system on the analyzed data. For the wireless monitoring system, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi are applied to datalogger-receiver and receiver-personal computer, respectively. For the model of the monopile structure response, a laboratory-scale monopile is manufactured with Mono Cast Nylon and a lateral loading is applied by hammer impacting. Strain gauges attached on the model monopile are connected with the datalogger. The distances of datalogger-receiver and receiver-personal computer are changed for the evaluation of the measurement range. Experimental results show that the receiving rates of the response remain almost constant within limited distance, while the receiving rates dramatically decrease out of effective range. In addition, the receiving rates affect on the measured natural frequencies of the model monopile. This study suggests that the effective range evaluation of the wireless monitoring system may be used for the determination of a monitoring distance to the monopile installed in the offshore wind farm.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.222-231
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• 2016

Multi-member lattice-type structures including jackets and tripods are being considered as good alternatives to monopile foundations for relatively deep water of 25-50 m of water depth owing to their technical and economic feasibility. In this study, the reliability analysis of bottom-fixed offshore wind turbines with monopile and/or multi-member lattice-type foundations is carried out and the sensitivities of random variables such as material properties, external wind loadings and scouring depth are compared with respect to different types of foundations. Numerical analysis of the NREL 5 MW wind turbine supported by monopile, tripod and jacket substructures shows that the uncertainties of soil properties affect the reliability index more significantly for the monopile-supported OWTs while the reliability index is not so sensitive to the material properties in the cases of tripod- and jacket-supported OWTs. In conclusion, the reliability analysis can be preliminarily carried out without considering soil-pile-interaction in the cases of tripod- and jacket-supported OWTs while it is very important to use the well-measured soil properties for reliable design of monopile-supported OWTs.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.343-350
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• 2015

Extensive discussion on the optimal types of offshore wind turbine(OWT) among monopile, tripod and jacket in the intermediate depth of water has been actively carried out in worldwide wind turbine industry. Selecting the optimal types of OWT among several substructural types, it is required to consider the economic and technical feasibility including dynamically stable design of a wind turbine system. In this study, the effects of loading levels and uncertainties of soil properties on the natural frequency of OWT have been quantitatively investigated. In conclusion, the natural frequency of monopile-type OWTs has a significant level of uncertainty, hence it is very important to minimize the level of uncertainties in soil properties when the monopile is selected as a foundation for an OWT.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.84-90
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• 2017

In this research, a three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD), scour characteristics around monopile was grasped and the effect of circular ring type scour protection on reducing protection was assessed. When Torsethaugen(1975) found that the scour area and its depth were coincided quantitatively On the ground of previous findings, after scour was assessed in terms of sea current velocity, we also found that the tendency of maximum scour depth and its width were increased as the sea current velocity was increased. The experiments were performed by attaching ring-circular typed scour protection under the bottom in order to reducing scour around the constructs of monopile type and showed reduced scour approximately by 68.5%. In addition, there were reduction of downward flow and bottom velocities, suggesting that scour protection reduce the effect of downward flow on scour.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.32 no.2C
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• pp.61-68
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• 2012

In general, verticality error necessarily occurs in marine pile foundation due to construction error or marine environmental effects. In marine structure, design by vertical load rather than horizontal load is dominant, but in the offshore wind turbine foundation, horizontal load is dominant. As the structure type that has dynamic movement by blade rotation, verticality error may have structurally significant effects. In this study, structural response feature of foundation and ground were analyzed according to verticality error of monopile foundation of 5MW offshore wind turbine. Marine environmental load was calculated per ISO standard and the margin of verticality error was calculated to be $L/{\infty}$(=0), L/300, L/200 and L/100. As a result of analysis, it was found that the maximum value of member force of the foundation with L/100 error increased about 7.2% compared to the monopile without verticality error.

• Korean Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.193-209
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• 2015

For reasons such as global warming, depletion of fossil fuels and the danger of nuclear energy the research and development of renewable energy is actively underway. Wind energy has advantages over another renewable energy in terms of location requirements, energy efficiency and reliability. Nowadays the research and development area is expanded to offshore because it can supply more wind reliability and free from noise pollution. In this study, the monopile offshore wind turbine transportation and installation (T&I) process are investigated. In addition, the schedule and cost for the process are estimated by discrete event simulation. For the simulation, simulation models for various means of T&I are developed. The optimum T&I execution plan with shortest duration and lowest cost can be found by using different mission start day and T&I means.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.347-355
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• 2013

A damage estimation method for monopile support structure of offshore wind turbine using modal properties and committee of neural networks is presented for effective structural health monitoring. An analytical model for a monopile support structure is established, and the natural frequencies, mode shapes, and mode shape slopes for the support structure are calculated considering soil condition and added mass. The input to the neural networks consists of the modal properties and the output is composed of the stiffness indices of the support structure. Multiple neural networks are constructed and each individual network is trained independently with different initial synaptic weights. Then, the estimated stiffness indices from different neural networks are averaged. Ten damage cases are estimated using the proposed method, and the identified damage locations and severities agree reasonably well with the exact values. The accuracy of the estimation can be improved by applying the committee of neural networks which is a statistical approach averaging the damage indices in the functional space.

• Transactions of the Korean Society for Noise and Vibration Engineering
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• v.22 no.7
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• pp.667-675
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• 2012

A damage estimation method for support structure of offshore wind turbine using modal parameters is presented for effective structural health monitoring. Natural frequencies and mode shapes for a support structure with monopile of an offshore wind turbine were calculated considering soil condition and added mass. A neural network was learned based on training patterns generated by the changes of natural frequency and mode shape due to various damages. Natural frequencies and mode shapes for 10 prospective damage cases were input to the trained neural network for damage estimation. The identified damage locations and severities agreed reasonably well with the accurate damages. Multi-damage cases could also be successfully estimated. Enhancement of estimation result using another parameters as input to neural network will be carried out by further study. Proposed method could be applied to other type of support structure of offshore wind turbine for structural health monitoring.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.281-287
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• 2017

In the case of fixed offshore wind turbines, scouring phenomena have been reported around sub-structures as a result of currents, which seriously damage the structural stability. A parametric study of the various sub-structures of a fixed offshore wind turbine was performed to investigate their effects on the scouring phenomena. For a suction bucket foundation and monopile, the effects of the stick-up heights and water depth were studied, respectively. The open source libraries, called OpenFOAM, were used to simulate a violent flow around a foundation. The numerical methods were selected based on a two-dimensional analysis of a suction bucket. Based on the results for various stick-up heights, a larger scouring region was observed with an increase in the stick-up height because of the down-wash flow around a foundation. Based on the results for various monopile water depths, the water depth had an insignificant effect on the scouring.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.79-91
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• 2019

Renewed interest in the long-term pile foundations has been driven by the increase in offshore wind turbine installation to generate renewable energy. A monopile subjected to repetitive loads experiences an evolution of displacements, pile rotation, and stress redistribution along the embedded portion of the pile. However, it is not fully understood how the embedded pile interacts with the surrounding soil elements based on different pile geometries. This study investigates the long-term soil response around offshore monopiles using finite element method. The semi-empirical numerical approach is adopted to account for the fundamental features of volumetric strain (terminal void ratio) and shear strain (shakedown and ratcheting), the strain accumulation rate, and stress obliquity. The model is tested with different strain boundary conditions and stress obliquity by relaxing four model parameters. The parametric study includes pile diameter, embedded length, and moment arm distance from the surface. Numerical results indicate that different pile geometries produce a distinct evolution of lateral displacement and stress. In particular, the repetitive lateral load increases the global lateral load resistance. Further analysis provides insight into the propagation of the shear localization from the pile tip to the ground surface.