Numerical Studies on Performance of Offshore Wind Turbine Composite Suction Pile in Sand Subjected to Combined Loading

Abstract

In order to increase the overall bearing capacity of a wind turbine foundation, a composite type of suction pile is proposed in this paper. Numerical studies on the performance of the proposed suction pile with enlarged lid size subjected to combined lateral and axial loading is presented in the paper. The numerical model is firstly validated by comparison with other numerical study results. The parametric analysis results prove a suction pile with enlarged lid size has better performance than a normal suction pile on both the overall bearing capacity and the stability of the foundation.