ABSTRACT
In the summer of 2022, a full-scale pile test was carried out in the Caland Canal on behalf of the Port of Rotterdam Authority. In this test, two large diameter mooring piles were pulled towards each other under lateral loading. The forces, displacements and strains were continuously monitored during 9 load-unload steps. The aim of the test was to gain a better insight into the load-displacement behaviour of a mooring pile during (repeated) loading, and more specifically into the fixation of the pile tip. The current design method proposed in the CROW publication Flexible Dolphins may result in mooring piles that are too long, due to the required fixation criterion in the publication. Witteveen+Bos performed the prediction and back analysis of the pile response with the use of the finite element method (FEM), the results of which are presented in this article. The results of the pile test highlight that the mooring pile may in fact be shorter with an alternative fixation criterion.
