ABSTRACT

R.T. Klinkvort & O. Hededal Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark

ABSTRACT: Today one of the most used concepts for wind turbine foundation is the monopile. The foundation concepts for these monopiles on deeper water is uncertain and consequently the design needs to be conservative leading to uneconomic designs. This paper describes a total number of 6 static and 5 cyclic centrifuge tests on a laterally loaded monopile in dry sand. The prototype dimension of the piles was modelled to a diameter of 1 meter and penetration depth on 6 meter. The test series were designed in order to investigate the scaling laws in the centrifuge both for monotonic and cyclic loading. It was not possible in the tests to reproduce the same prototype response for both the monotonic and the cyclic loading. It was not clear if this scatter in prototype data was due to normal measurement uncertainties or if the response is depending on the scaling factor.