The cyclic behavior of clay significantly influences the dynamic response of offshore wind turbines (OWTs). This study presents a practical bounding surface model capable of describing both cyclic shakedown and cyclic degradation. The model is characterized by a simple theoretical framework and a limited number of parameters, and it has been numerically implemented in ABAQUS through a user-defined material (UMAT) subroutine. The yield surface remains fixed at the origin with isotropic hardening, while a movable projection center is introduced to capture cyclic hysteresis behavior. Cumulative plastic deviatoric strain is integrated into the plastic modulus to represent cyclic accumulation. Validation against undrained cyclic tests on three types of clay demonstrates its capability in reproducing stress-strain hysteresis, cyclic shakedown, and cyclic degradation. Additionally, its effectiveness in solving finite element boundary value problems is verified through centrifuge tests on large-diameter monopiles. Furthermore, the model is adopted to analyze the dynamic response of monopile OWTs under seismic loading. The results indicate that, compared to cyclic shakedown, cyclic degradation leads to a progressive reduction in soil stiffness, which diminishes acceleration amplification, increases settlement accumulation, and results in higher residual excess pore pressure with greater fluctuation. Despite its advantages, this model requires a priori specification of the sign of the plastic modulus parameter cd to capture either cyclic degradation or shakedown behavior. Furthermore, under undrained conditions, the model leads pstabilization of the effective stress path, which subsequently results in underestimation of the excess pore pressure.

The structural design of offshore wind turbines must account for numerous design load cases to capture various scenarios, including power production, parked conditions, and emergency or fault conditions under different environmental conditions. Given the stochastic nature of these external actions, deterministic analyses using characteristic values and safety factors, or Monte Carlo Simulations, are necessary. This process involves a large number of simulations, ranging from ten to a hundred thousand, to achieve a reliable and optimal structural design. To reduce computational complexity, practitioners can employ low-fidelity models where the soil-foundation system is either neglected or simplified using linear elastic models. However, medium to large cyclic soil-pile lateral displacements can induce soil hysteretic behaviour, potentially mitigating structural and foundation vibrations. A practical solution at the preliminary design stage entails using stiffness-proportional viscous damping to capture the damping generated by the soil-pile hysteresis. This paper investigates the efficacy of this simplified approach for the IEA 15 MW reference wind turbine on a large-diameter monopile foundation subjected to several operational and extreme wind speeds. The soil-pile interaction system is modelled through lateral and rotational springs in which a constant stiffness-proportional damping model is applied. The results indicate that the foundation damping generated by the nonlinear soil-pile interaction is significant and cannot be neglected. When fast analyses are required, the stiffness-proportional viscous damping model can be reasonably used to approximate the structural response of the wind turbine. This approach enhanced the accuracy of the computed responses, including the maximum bending moment at the mudline for ultimate limit design and damage equivalent loads for fatigue analysis, in comparison to methods that disregard foundation damping.

The horizontal displacement of monopile under cyclic loading is subject to uncertainty due to variations in metocean conditions and soil parameters at offshore wind farms. However, the current design for cyclically loaded monopiles relies on the p-y method recommended by API and DNV, which does not accurately capture the horizontal displacement of the monopiles. In this study, finite element simulations are performed using ABAQUS, where the soil is modeled with the Einav-Randolph model to account for soil softening effects. The impact of parameter uncertainties, such as soil stiffness, undrained shear strength, and the pile-soil friction coefficient, on the reliability index of the monopile's horizontal displacement for different length diameter (L/D) ratios is investigated. A case study is provided to assess the horizontal displacement reliability of a monopile under cyclic loading. The results show that the horizontal displacement reliability index decreases as the coefficient of variation (COV) of the random variables, the correlation coefficient, and the monopile's L/D ratio increase. Conversely, the reliability index increases with an increase in the allowable horizontal displacement. The horizontal displacement reliability index is most sensitive to soil stiffness, followed by undrained shear strength and pile-soil friction coefficient. The findings of this study offer valuable insights into how parameter uncertainties influence the horizontal displacement of monopiles under cyclic loading.

Offshore wind turbines, crucial for global electricity generation, face significant challenges from harsh marine conditions, including strong wind, waves, and uneven seabeds. To optimize the foundation solution, this study investigates the lateral performance of helical monopiles, comparing conventional monopiles under cyclic loading, with a focus on variations in pile configuration and soil conditions. Model-scale experiments were conducted with helical piles subjected to both monotonic and one-way cyclic loading conditions. Key variations in the study include three soil densities (Dr = 35 %, 55 %, and 75 %), along with different slope conditions (Flat, 1V:5H, 1V:3H, 1V:2H) and pile positions (c = 0Dp, 2.5Dp, 5Dp, 7.5Dp). Additionally, the effect of load amplitudes (xi b = 50 %, 40 %, and 30 %) applied at a frequency of 0.25Hz for over 1000 cycles was examined. Results showed that helical piles outperformed conventional monopiles, exhibiting up to 25 % higher lateral load capacity, 30 % less accumulated rotation, and 20 % greater cyclic stiffness, especially in dense soils. Furthermore, the analysis revealed that the performance of helical piles significantly improved when placed nearer to the slope crest and in denser soils. Numerical simulations using PLAXIS 3D confirmed these experimental findings, demonstrating that helical piles consistently maintain superior lateral resistance and cyclic performance under varying loading conditions and slope configurations. This study underscores the potential of helical piles to enhance the stability ad performance of offshore wind turbine foundations, offering a more robust and efficient alternative to monopile systems.

Wind and wave actions that vary in amplitude, frequency and direction cause irregular cyclic loading on monopiles supporting offshore wind turbines (OWTs), resulting in cumulative deformation. Current design practice apply widely accepted classification methods to decompose a storm history into an idealised series of cyclic load parcels with uniform amplitude, ordered in magnitude. This approach is based on Miner's rule, which assumes that the final accumulated deformation in the soil is independent of the sequence in which load cycles are applied. Research has shown this approach to be reasonable under drained conditions in sand. This study investigates the validity of this assumption under fully undrained conditions in clay through a series of three dimensional (3D) finite element analyses incorporating an advanced soil constitutive model. A large diameter monopile installed in an overconsolidated clay deposit is subjected to cyclic loading sequences arranged in ascending, descending, and mixed-sorted order. The effect of the load ordering sequence is demonstrated by comparing local soil behaviour in terms of cyclic ratcheting, strain accumulation, clay-structure degradation and excess pore-water pressure buildup and linking these to the global pile response in terms of pile rotation, stiffness, and damping. Findings show that under fully undrained conditions, the ordering of cyclic load sequence notably affects the performance of monopiles in overconsolidated clay deposits. These results suggest that experimental investigations are needed to further explore cyclic loading sequences on monopiles in clay, which could inform the development of improved numerical and design procedures for offshore monopiles.

Increasing demand on clean energy leads to the expanded construction of offshore wind turbines (OWT) worldwide. Different types of foundations of OWTs includes gravity, jackets, monopiles etc. When functioning, OWTs face severe conditions with complex loadings (e.g. varying loading amplitudes and loading frequencies). In this study, the influence of the loading amplitude and loading frequency on the lateral displacement of monopiles in marine clay was investigated by conducting 1-g physical model tests at a scale of 1:30. The p-y curves at different depths were derived as well from the recorded moment distribution along the monopile. According to the results, the lateral displacement increases with the loading amplitude and frequency and the monopiles experience response of shakedown under cyclic loading. The lateral displacement after N cycles is related to the initial displacement via an extended logarithmic function. Besides, the p-y curves available in literature underestimate the soil resistance but hyperbolic functions provide comparatively closer predictions.

Damping plays a crucial role in the design of offshore wind turbine (OWT) monopile foundations. The soil damping of the monopile-soil system (MSS) represents the energy dissipation mechanism arising from the interaction between the pile and the soil. It is typically derived by back-calculating from the overall damping measured in the entire OWT structure. However, few studies have independently examined the soil damping in MSS, and the impact of key parameters such as pile diameter, pile embedded depth, cyclic load amplitude, and load eccentricity on the variation of soil damping in MSS remains unclear. This paper introduces an elastoplastic-damage constitutive model for the numerical simulation of the damping ratio variation in seabed soil and MSS. The model is implemented in ABAQUS software and validated against cyclic triaxial tests on stiff clay soil. On this basis, a three-dimensional finite element sensitivity study was conducted to elucidate the effect of these key parameters on the MSS damping ratio. The results of the study reveal that the MSS damping ratio exhibits a nonlinear and asymmetric trend as the loading cycles increase. The MSS damping ratio decreases with increasing pile diameter and embedded depth but increases with increasing lateral cyclic load amplitude and load eccentricity from the mudline.

Monopiles are the most popular type of foundation for offshore wind turbines. Although capturing the effects of cyclic loading is critical to the design of monopiles, there is no recommended approach in the main design standards and no consensus in the literature as to how this can be achieved. Hence, this paper presents the step-by-step methodology and validation of a new cyclic model in sand and clay. The model consists of the degradation of monotonic soil reaction curves based on soil cyclic contour diagrams. The model is found to provide a very satisfactory match with the PISA field tests in Dunkirk dense marine sand and Cowden stiff glacial till.

As the monopile supported offshore wind turbine (OWT) is a dynamic sensitive structure, one of the major challenges in its design is the assessment of the natural frequency to avoid resonance during the lifetime. Since the characteristics of OWTs under dynamic loading and their long-term behavior are not fully understood, to study their natural frequency considering soil-monopile interaction, a series of scaled model tests in sand were performed. The first part was about the initial resonant frequency subjected to different forcing amplitudes and the second part was about the change of the natural frequency under long-term horizontal cyclic loadings. Based on the test results, the effects of pile-soil interaction, related to the loading amplitude, embedment depth, soil density, and cyclic numbers, on the natural frequency of OWTs are presented by a non-dimensional group based on the explanation of the governing mechanism. As the soil nonlinearity leads to a degradation in the natural frequency of monopile supported OWTs in the sand and the cyclic loading results in an increase, the choice of the natural frequency closer to the upper limit of the 1P band is suggested in practice based on the tradeoff of the two above effects.

It is well known that piles embedded in sand accumulate lateral deformation (displacement and rotation) when subjected to horizontal cyclic loading. The rate of accumulation depends on various parameters, such as loading conditions and properties of the pile-soil system. For nearly rigid piles, such as monopile foundations for offshore wind turbines, an essential aspect is the type of loading, which is determined by the ratio of the cyclic minimum load to cyclic maximum load. Several studies have shown that asymmetric two-way loading generally results in larger accumulated pile deformation compared with other types of loading, especially oneway loading with complete unloading in each cycle. This article presents the planning, execution, and evaluation of physical 1g small-scale model tests on the deformation accumulation of laterally loaded rigid piles due to cyclic loading focusing on soil deformations resulting from various cyclic load ratios. To visualize soil deformation fields and rearrangement processes within the soil profiles, particle image velocimetry (PIV) was applied in the tests. The evaluation of the model test results provides insights into varying accumulation rates and highlights the capabilities as well as limitations of PIV. The observations are summarized under the of findings, which may assist in planning future PIV experiments.