ABSTRACT
It is widely acknowledged that the world needs to move rapidly away from a dependence on fossil carbon fuels. Wind power represents a major potential source of renewable energy, but obstacles to exploiting its full potential remain. For example, as the preferred turbine size increases (noting that 7 MW turbines with a rotor diameter of 126 m are already in operation), there are ever increasing demands on foundation stiffness and capacity, particularly offshore where wave loading acts in addition to wind loading. The most popular offshore wind turbine foundation solution is a single pile (or monopile) with a maximum (currently achieved) diameter of about 5 m. The lateral and rotational stiffness provided by such a pile is not likely to be sufficient to support the new generation of wind turbines and therefore a range of different foundation solutions are being examined.
