Abstract: This article reviews scouring and liquefaction issues for anchor foundations of floating offshore wind farms. The review is organized in two sections:(1) the scouring issues for drag-embedment anchors (DEAs) and other subsea structures associated with DEAs such as tensioners, clump weights, and chains in floating offshore wind farms; and (2) the liquefaction issues for the same types of structures, particularly for DEAs. The scouring processes are described in detail, and the formulae and design guidelines for engineering predictions are included for quantities like scour depth, time scale, and sinking due to general shear failure of the bed soil caused by scour. The latter is furnished with numerical examples. Likewise, in the second section, the liquefaction processes are described with special reference to residual liquefaction where pore-water pressure builds up in undrained soils (such as fine sand and silt) under waves, leading to liquefaction of the bed soil and precipitating failure of DEAs and their associated subsea structures. An integrated mathematical model to deal with liquefaction around and the resulted sinking failure of DEAs, introduced in a recent study, has been revisited. Implementation of the model is illustrated with a numerical example. It is believed that the present review and the existing literatures from the "neighboring" fields form a complementary source of information on scour and liquefaction around foundations of floating offshore wind farms.
Abstract: Local scour at monopile foundations of offshore wind turbines is one of the most critical structural stability issues. This article reviews the contemporary methods of scour countermeasures at monopile foundations. These methods include armouring countermeasures (e.g., riprap protection) to enhance the anti-scour ability of the bed materials and flow-altering countermeasures (e.g., collars and sacrificial piles) to reduce downflow or change flow patterns around the monopiles. Stability number and size-selection equations for riprap armour layers are summarised and compared. Moreover, other alternative methods to riprap are briefly introduced and presented. A typical graph of the scour depth reduction with different collar sizes and elevations under specific test conditions is summarised and compared with a plot for a pile founded on a caisson. Reduction rates for different flow-altering countermeasures, including the collar, are listed and compared. A newly developed soil improvement method, namely microbially induced calcite precipitation (MICP), is also reviewed and introduced as a scour protection method. As a popular bio-soil treatment method, MICP has a good potential as a scour countermeasure method. Bio-soil treatment methods and traditional armouring methods are defined as active and passive soil enhancement scour countermeasures, respectively.
Abstract: In this article, current research findings of local scour at offshore windfarm monopile foundations are presented. The scour mechanisms and scour depth prediction formulas under different hydrodynamic conditions are summarized, including the current-only condition, wave-only condition, combined wave-current condition, and complex dynamic condition. Furthermore, this article analyzes the influencing factors on the basis of classical equations for predicting the equilibrium scour depth under specific conditions. The weakness of existing researches and future prospects are also discussed. It is suggested that future research shall focus on physical experiments under unsteady tidal currents or other complex loadings. The computational fluid dynamics-discrete element method and artificial intelligence technique are suggested being adopted to study the scour at offshore windfarm foundations.
The Keulegan-Carpenter (KC) number is the main dimensionless parameter that affects the local scour of offshore wind power monopile foundations. This study conducted large-scale (1:13) physical model tests to study the local scour shape, equilibrium scour depth, and local scour volume of offshore wind power monopiles under the action of irregular waves with different KC numbers. Systematic experiments were carried out with the KC number ranging from 1.0 to 13.0. With a small KC number (KC < 6), and especially when the KC number was less than 4, the scour mainly occurred on both cross-flow sides of the monopile with a low scour depth. When the KC number exceeded 4, the shape of the scour hole changed from a fan to an ellipse, and the maximum scour depth increased significantly with KC. With a large KC number (KC > 6), the proposed method better predicted the equilibrium scour depth when the wave broke. In addition, according to the results of three-dimensional terrain scanning, the relationship between the local equilibrium scour volume of a single offshore wind power monopile and the KC number was derived. This provided a rational method for estimation of the riprap redundancy for monopile protection against scour.
Abstract: Many studies have been undertaken to predict local scour around offshore high-rise structure foundations (HRSFs), which have been used in constructing the Donghai Wind Farm in China. However, there have been few works on the turbulent flow that drives the scour process. In this study, the characteristics of the turbulent flow fields around an HRSF were investigated using the particle image velocimetry technique. The mean flow, vorticity, and turbulence intensity were analyzed in detail. The relationship between the flow feature and scour development around an HRSF was elaborated. The results showed that the flow velocity increased to its maximum value near the third row of the pile group. The shear layer and wake vortices could not be fully developed downstream of the last row of the piles at small Reynolds numbers. The strong flow and turbulent fluctuation near the third piles explained the existence of a long-tail scour pattern starting from the HRSF shoulders and a trapezoidal deposition region directly downstream of HRSF. This laboratory experiment gains insight into the mechanism of the turbulent flow around HRSFs and provides a rare dataset for numerical model verifications.
Abstract: The interaction between waves and currents in the ocean often complicates the flow field around structures. In this study, a three-dimensional integrated numerical model was established to investigate the seabed response and liquefaction around a mono-pile under different wave-current interaction angles. In the present model, the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equations were used to simulate the flow field, and the Biot's poro-elastic theory was adopted to calculate the seabed response caused by crossing wave-current loading. Unlike previous studies, the load on the mono-pile was considered, and the wave-current interaction angle was extended to 180°, which was more in line with practical engineering problems. The numerical results were in a good agreement with the experimental measurements. The results indicated that waves interacted with currents in a large angle could result in a large momentary liquefaction depth of the seabed. The parametric studies proved that the position of the front and two sides of the pile was relatively safer compared with that of the leeside of the pile, and the surface of the seabed downstream of the pile was liable to liquefy.
Abstract: Monopile response under undrained conditions in sand is gaining increasing interests owing to the recent development of offshore wind farms in seismic regions. Pore pressure evolution in liquefiable soil can significantly reduce the strength and stiffness of the soil which in turn affects the structural dynamic response. Several numerical models have been developed in the last two decades to enhance understanding of the mechanism of monopile-soil interaction with the existence of pore water pressure. In this study, the effects of geometry and static vertical load on monopile lateral response were studied using three-dimensional finite element methods that consider the existence of lateral cyclic loadinduced pore water pressure. To achieve reliable simulation results of pore pressure development and pile displacement accumulation during cyclic loading, the simple anisotropic sand model with memory surface for undrained cyclic behavior of sand was adopted. For piles with the same diameter, a accumulated pile head displacement during lateral cyclic loading decreased linearly with increasing pile embedded length but increased with increasing eccentricity. Static vertical load had minor effects on pile cyclic lateral response. The distributions of mean effective stress and pore water pressure in the soil domain were presented. The pile reaction curve (cyclic soil reaction against pile defection) of the monopile was extracted. The numerical results aim to provide reference for optimized engineering design procedures.
Abstract: The seabed instability induced by the transient liquefaction when exposed to wave-current may threaten the safety of offshore structures. In this study, the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations with the k-ε turbulence model were used to imitate the fluid dynamics, and Biot's poro-elastic theory was used to simulate the transient seabed response. An in-house solver (porous-fluid-seabed-structure interactions-field operation and manipulation) integrating the flow model and seabed model with the finite volume method was developed. The present model was confirmed with published experimental results and then used to analyze the dynamic process of the fluid-seabed-structure interactions as well as seafloor liquefaction around the jacket foundation under wave-current loading. The simulated results showed that the depth and range for the liquefaction area around the jacket foundation tended to increase at first and then declined as the wave propagated forward in the absence of current. In addition, the results demonstrated that the liquefaction depth under current and wave in the same orientation was greater than that without current. It is worth mentioning that the downstream piles were more prone to liquefaction than the upstream piles when the forward current existed.
