Design of Foundations for Offshore Wind Turbines

Preface

The offshore wind power industry is expanding at a rapid pace in Europe and Asia and has the potential to solve many issues: clean air, clean energy, and energy security for fossil‐fuel‐starved countries (e.g. Japan, India). Furthermore, the cost of offshore wind has reduced drastically over the last five years, and it is speculated that this will become the cheapest form of energy in the industrialised world. Foundation selection for these offshore structures plays an important role in the overall concept design for offshore wind farms, as there are large financial implications attached to the choices made. Typically, foundations cost 16−34% of the overall costs, depending on the location and size of the wind farm. This book provides an overview of the civil engineering aspects of these significant infrastructure projects and then focuses on the foundation design.

The industry started by following the design of offshore oil and gas (O&G) structures. This book shows the differences in the design of foundations of two types of offshore structures: O&G and offshore wind turbines (OWTs). It is now widely acknowledged that OWT structures are unique in their features. The most important difference with respect to O&G installation structures is dynamic sensitivity − i.e. natural frequencies of these structures are very close to the forcing frequencies from wave, rotor frequency (1P), and blade frequency (2P/3P). This book aims to distil the knowledge gained through research ...