A COMPARISON BETWEEN THE LATERAL RESPONSE OF MONOPILE IN CALCAREOUS AND SILICA SANDS BY CENTRIFUGE MODELING

By increasing the demand for renewable, sustainable and greener energy resources, the offshore wind farm industry is experiencing quick growth in many countries,such as the UK and Germany. It is expected for near-term (2020), and long-term (2050) offshore wind turbines (OWTs) play an important, paramount role in reducinggreenhouse gas emission. The most common foundation type for offshore wind turbines is a single large diameter pile, termed a mono-pile, which the turbine is located on.Furthermore, they are used as breasting and mooring dolphins in port structures. As the diameter of such piles is envisaged to increase in future installations, there areconcerns that current design methods are not applicable. Although many types of research have done on the lateral response of mono-piles, still a paucity of comprehensivedata exists to make general rules. Such piles are always subjected to significant lateral loads due to the wind, mooring force and wave actions (Figure 1). This paperdescribes the results of a centrifuge modeling study of the response of mono-piles embedded in calcareous and silica sands subjected to monotonic lateral loading. Theexperimental program involved a comprehensive set of centrifuge modeling tests on reconstituted samples of calcareous and silica sands with a similar grain sizedistribution tested by utilizing the Geotechnical Centrifuge of the University of Tehran at similar conditions for comparison purposes. In this study, the main characteristics of mono-pile static lateral behavior are investigated.