The organizing committee of the 4th ISFOG will propose a series of six webinars on topics of relevance to the offshore geotechnical engineering community. These webinars will emphasize theoretical engineering aspects and will be offered free-of-charge monthly from January 2022 to June 2022. They will consist of 45-min live online presentations, followed by 15 min Q&A. They will be recorded and posted on YouTube.

New Design Tools for Laterally Loaded Wind Turbine Monopiles (PISA JIP)

Organizer: Byron Byrne, Professor and Ørsted / Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair, University of Oxford

Offshore wind turbines in shallow coastal waters are typically supported on monopile foundations. The webinar describes a new 1D design model for monopile foundations which was developed through the Pile Soil Analysis (PISA) JIP, which ran between 2014 and 2018. The model is specifically formulated for offshore wind turbine applications, although the general approach could be adopted for other applications. The model draws on the conventional p–y approach, but extends it to include additional components of soil reaction that act on the pile. The 1D model is calibrated using a set of bespoke 3D finite-element analyses of monopile performance, for pile characteristics and loading conditions that span a predefined design space. The calibrated 1D model provides results that match those obtained from the 3D finite-element calibration analysis, but at a fraction of the computational cost.

This 1D modelling approach will be demonstrated for monopiles installed in a stiff, over-consolidated glacial clay till with a typical North Sea strength and stiffness profile. The general approach can be applied to other foundation and soil–structure interaction problems, in which bespoke calibration of a simplified model can lead to more efficient design.

The Geo-Institute is a technical society with about 12,000 geotechnical engineers and geologists as members. Find out more or join at http://www.geoinstitute.org.

The Deep Foundations Institute is an international association of contractors, engineers, manufacturers, suppliers, academics and owners in the deep foundations industry. Find out more or join at http://www.dfi.org.