The composite bucket foundation (CBF) is a cost-competitive foundation for offshore wind turbines, which can be adapted to the loading characteristics and development needs of offshore wind farms due to its special structural form. There are seven sections divided inside the CBF by steel bulkheads, which are arranged in a honeycomb structure. The six peripheral sections with the skirt have the same proportions while the middle orthohexagonal one is a little larger. With the seven-section structure, the CBF has reasonable motion characteristics and towing reliability during the wet-tow construction process. Moreover, the pressure inside the compartments can control the levelness of the CBF during suction installation. Several large-scale model tests on suction installation of CBF have been performed in order to explore the feasibility of the tilt adjusting technique in saturated silty sand off the coast of Jiangsu in China. The composite bucket foundation in the tests has an outer diameter of 3.5 m and a clear wall height of 0.9 m. During the suction-assisted penetration process, the pressures in all the compartments were controlled to level the foundation in a timely operation. A convenient method is to improve the CBF inclination by controlling the inside differential pressure among the compartments. It can be commonly carried out by applying suction/positive pressure with intermittent pumping among the seven compartments. Another adjusting technique for a big tilt with deeper penetration is operated with decreasing the penetration depth achieved by suction-assisted lowering the relatively high compartments and positive pressures raising the relatively low compartments. Test results show that the reciprocating adjustment process can be repeated until the CBF is completely penetrated into a designed depth.
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December 2016
Research-Article
Experimental Study on Installation of Composite Bucket Foundations for Offshore Wind Turbines in Silty Sand
Puyang Zhang,
Puyang Zhang
Associate Professor
State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic
Engineering Simulation and Safety;
Key Laboratory of Coast Civil Structure Safety,
Ministry of Education,
School of Civil Engineering,
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
e-mail: zpy@tju.edu.cn; zpy_td@163.com
State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic
Engineering Simulation and Safety;
Key Laboratory of Coast Civil Structure Safety,
Ministry of Education,
School of Civil Engineering,
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
e-mail: zpy@tju.edu.cn; zpy_td@163.com
Search for other works by this author on:
Zhi Zhang,
Zhi Zhang
School of Civil Engineering,
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
Search for other works by this author on:
Yonggang Liu,
Yonggang Liu
School of Civil Engineering,
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
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Hongyan Ding
Hongyan Ding
Professor
State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic
Engineering Simulation and Safety;
Key Laboratory of Coast Civil Structure Safety,
Ministry of Education,
School of Civil Engineering,
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic
Engineering Simulation and Safety;
Key Laboratory of Coast Civil Structure Safety,
Ministry of Education,
School of Civil Engineering,
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
Search for other works by this author on:
Puyang Zhang
Associate Professor
State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic
Engineering Simulation and Safety;
Key Laboratory of Coast Civil Structure Safety,
Ministry of Education,
School of Civil Engineering,
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
e-mail: zpy@tju.edu.cn; zpy_td@163.com
State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic
Engineering Simulation and Safety;
Key Laboratory of Coast Civil Structure Safety,
Ministry of Education,
School of Civil Engineering,
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
e-mail: zpy@tju.edu.cn; zpy_td@163.com
Zhi Zhang
School of Civil Engineering,
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
Yonggang Liu
School of Civil Engineering,
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
Hongyan Ding
Professor
State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic
Engineering Simulation and Safety;
Key Laboratory of Coast Civil Structure Safety,
Ministry of Education,
School of Civil Engineering,
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic
Engineering Simulation and Safety;
Key Laboratory of Coast Civil Structure Safety,
Ministry of Education,
School of Civil Engineering,
Tianjin University,
Tianjin 300072, China
1Corresponding author.
Contributed by the Ocean, Offshore, and Arctic Engineering Division of ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF OFFSHORE MECHANICS AND ARCTIC ENGINEERING. Manuscript received April 25, 2015; final manuscript received August 12, 2016; published online September 16, 2016. Assoc. Editor: Lance Manuel.
J. Offshore Mech. Arct. Eng. Dec 2016, 138(6): 061901 (11 pages)
Published Online: September 16, 2016
Article history
Received:
April 25, 2015
Revised:
August 12, 2016
Citation
Zhang, P., Zhang, Z., Liu, Y., and Ding, H. (September 16, 2016). "Experimental Study on Installation of Composite Bucket Foundations for Offshore Wind Turbines in Silty Sand." ASME. J. Offshore Mech. Arct. Eng. December 2016; 138(6): 061901. https://doi.org/10.1115/1.4034456
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