Comparison of various approaches to pipe-pile capacity control for offshore wind turbines

Abstract

Tubular pipe piles have a wide application in geotechnical engineering, for example as foundation structures in rivers, lakes and for offshore structures. For assessment of pipe pile bearing capacity the static load test is often used due to its commonly consideration as the most reliable method of pile testing. Nevertheless, because of high costs of the test and difficulties with appropriate construction of kentledge system, the application of static load test is often limited. The great supplement to obtain information on pile’s capacity are tests conducted on model piles in small laboratory scale. In this paper, results of static load test conducted on small scale tubular model pipe pipes installed in non-cohesive homogenous soil are introduced. The installation process, pile testing procedure and equipment applied for continuous load and model pile head displacement measurement are presented. The results of tests are shown in load-displacement charts. For load-displacement curve construction and pile bearing capacity estimation from static load test several different method are introduced with their application to performed tests and discussion of the results. Finally, future research plans are proposed.