Proceedings of the Twenty-fourth (2014) International Ocean and Polar Engineering Conference

Busan, Korea, June 15-20, 2014

Copyright 2014 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE)
ISBN 978-1 880653 91-3 (Set); ISSN 1098-6189 (Set)

www.isope.org

Design of Composite Pile Foundations for Offshore Wind Turbines

Yunsup Shin, Thomas Langford
Offshore Energy, Offshore Geotechnics, Norwegian Geotechnical Institute, Oslo, Norway

Kyunghwan Cho, Jongheon Park

Civil and Offshore team, GS E&C Seoul, Korea

Jaehyun Park
Research Fellow, Korea Institute of Construction Technology, Goyang-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea

The most popular design for offshore turbines is the monopile that is
fabricated by steel materials. Steel materials are one of the most
frequently used materials in offshore structures for a number of
reasons, including excellent bearing capacity, high lateral load
resistance, light weight, outstanding workability, and easy welding and
cutting. However, the steel piles are more expensive than the concrete
piles, and the cost of steel has been rising recently in South Korea. The
pre-tensioned spun high strength concrete pile (PHC pile) are
frequently used in onshore engineering practice in Asia. The PHC pile
is similar to ICP pile in North America (Fellenius B, 2009). The quality
and strength of the PHC pile are generally reliable, because it is
prefabricated in factories. Due to economic considerations, PHC pile
has been applied in most parts of onshore civil structures in South
Korea.
Recently, a R&D project, named hybrid substructure system for
offshore wind turbines, has commenced in South Korea (KETEP,
2013). Main substructures consist of tripod jacket structures made of
cylindrical steel tubing with pre-installed composite pile foundations,
which consists of upper steel tube piles and lower pre-stressed concrete
piles, suitable for water depths from 20 to 30m. Advantages include
their resistance to wave and current loading, and inexpensive
fabrication cost. The disadvantages include installation, difficulty in
lack of experience to use of composite pile foundations for offshore
wind turbines.
In this study, the behaviors of composite pile foundations for offshore
structures are observed by the field pile load tests and estimated by
using beam spring analysis and FE analysis. Based on those results, a
practical design process are suggested for offshore wind foundations.

ABSTRACT
The current state of the practice of the offshore wind foundation design
is the monopiles that are made of large diameter cylindrical steel tubing
with a transition piece connecting the pile to the turbine tower. The
disadvantages include sub-structure flexibility at greater depths and
environmental noise during pile driving with hammers. Monopiles
should generally be avoided in deep soft soils and marine life protected
area due to the installation limits and impacts.
Alternative offshore wind foundations, so called composite pile
foundations, with cost and environmental friendly with sufficient
stiffness are proposed to make use of offshore wind foundations
possible. The composite pile foundations, which are specially used for
onshore structure, consists of upper steel tube piles and lower prestressed concrete piles resisting high bending moment in upper part and
high compression pressure in the lower part.
This paper aims to investigate the lateral behavior of the composite pile
foundations taking into account the interaction between pile and the soil
for both onshore and offshore purposes with 0.5m and 1.0m diameter
piles. The full-scaled pile load tests of composite pile foundations have
been performed and both beam spring analyses and finite element
analyses are carried out. This paper presents analysis results for the
application of composite pile foundations for offshore structure at the
Korean western sea, where the first offshore wind farms are about to be
installed.
This paper recommends proper design processes and methods for the
use of composite pile foundations in Korean western sea for
economical better practice.

BACKGROUND

KEY WORDS: Composite pile foundations, full-scaled pile load

tests, beam spring analysis, finite element analysis, cyclic loadings.

In general, composite pile foundations are defined as piles consisting of

two or more materials. Composite piles have been studied for many
years. Several empirical and numerical methods for the analyzing the
behavior of composite piles have been investigated. Although previous

INTRODUCTION

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