ABSTRACT
Offshore foundations are usually subject to significant lateral loads in addition to compressive and tensile axial loads. Future offshore wind energy developments require moving to deeper water with subsequent increases in lateral loads and bending moments applied to the foundation system. Conventional offshore monopiles will have to increase significantly in dimensions to carry such loading which may result in them becoming too expensive to fabricate and impractical to transport and deploy. Alternatives include the use of jacket structures or hybrid structures with smaller deep foundations. Unfortunately such structures typically rely on driven piles for foundations which may mean the driving of 3 to 4 piles for each wind turbine structure. This has the potential to commit a significant amount of both vessel time and manpower to a single project for extended amounts of time. In addition there is greater reluctance to allow extended driven pile installation due to the perceived threat to marine mammals. Therefore there is the potential to develop alternative foundation types for the deployment of renewable energy structures.
