ABSTRACT
Offshore wind power plant foundations resist relatively high horizontal loads and the use of batter piles has the potential to increase the efficiency of the foundation. The use of batter piles along with vertical piles in the pile-soil system increases overall efficiency (Rajashree & Sitharam 2001). The behaviour of a single pile with several batter angles under horizontal loading was first examined by Tschebotarioff (1953) and Murthy (1964). Meyerhof & Ranjan (1972) carried out studies to understand the group behaviour of batter piles in sand under inclined loads. The signs of the batter angle and horizontal load are very important because behaviour of the pile with positive and negative values of the same angle is different. According to the studies, a negative batter pile is more resistant to lateral load than a vertical or positive batter pile, as would be expected theoretically (Meyerhof & Ranjan 1972). The pile bents used in their study are as seen in Figure 1, and they
1 INTRODUCTION
Demand for electrical energy is increasing rapidly all over the world, causing more research to be done on electricity production from renewable energy resources. Wind energy is one of the most feasible sources of renewable energy. Offshore wind energy conversion systems are becoming a better alternative source of electricity production in Turkey and throughout Europe due to innovative higher capacity turbines installed on higher towers with wider diameters in deeper waters. Increased capacity of offshore wind turbines leads to higher environmental horizontal loading on the structure; as a result foundation cost becomes a more important issue.
