Foundational Design and Performance of Offshore Wind Turbines
Summary
The foundational design of offshore wind turbines centres on selecting and engineering substructures that ensure stability under simultaneous wind, wave and current loads. Common foundation types include monopiles, gravity bases, suction caissons and floating platforms, each suited to particular water depths and geotechnical conditions. Monopiles dominate in shallow to medium depths owing to their simplicity and cost-efficiency, while suction caissons offer rapid installation and minimal seabed disturbance. In deep water, floating spar, semi-submersible and tension-leg designs enable deployment where fixed foundations become impractical. Key design challenges involve accurate modelling of soil–structure interaction to predict lateral deflections, natural frequencies and dynamic response. Advanced analytical and numerical approaches, from distributed spring models to three-dimensional finite-element analysis, have been developed to capture the interplay between turbine loads and seabed stiffness, damping and degradation under cyclic loading. Performance assessment addresses fatigue under combined environmental forcing, resonance avoidance through tuned natural frequencies and resilience to extreme events such as storms or seismic shaking. Laboratory and field experiments, including large-scale pile tests and centrifuge studies, inform design parameters and validate computational models. As offshore wind farms expand globally, emphasis has turned to optimising foundation mass, reducing installation risk and minimising environmental impact, while maintaining structural reliability and serviceability across 25- to 30-year design lives.
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Foundational Design and Performance of Offshore Wind Turbines publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in foundational design and performance of offshore wind turbines across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Monopile foundation: A single large-diameter steel pile driven into the seabed to support a turbine tower.
Soil–structure interaction (SSI): The mutual response between foundation and surrounding soil under applied loads.
Natural frequency: The vibration frequency at which a structure tends to oscillate when disturbed, critical for avoiding resonance.
Suction caisson: A hollow, open-ended cylinder installed by creating a pressure differential to penetrate the seabed.
References
- A review of foundations of offshore wind energy convertors: Current status and future perspectives. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews (2018).
- Ground characterisation for PISA pile testing and analysis. Géotechnique (2019).
- Monotonic laterally loaded pile testing in a stiff glacial clay till at Cowden. Géotechnique (2019).
- Finite element modelling of laterally loaded piles in a dense marine sand at Dunkirk. Géotechnique (2019).
- Earthquake response of monopiles and caissons for Offshore Wind Turbines founded in liquefiable soil. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering (2020).
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