Tip Buckling of Monopiles

Buckling of the tip of a monopiles can occur during installation, particularly when piling in hard materials, or when there are substantial inclusions. Tip buckling can lead to premature refusal of the monopiles during installation, and is very expensive to remediate. To provide realistic descriptions of the tip buckling phenomena, current research explores boulder collision, to obtain better understanding of interactions at the interfaces of pile, boulder, and soil. Finite element analyses for large-deformation problems (ABAQUS CEL) and PIV analyses (GeoPIV) are key techniques that can be used to build a reliable calculation recipe for practical use. The figures show the framework of this recipe – starting with 2D benchmark models leading to 3D numerical models. This project is sponsored by EPSRC through the REMS CDT and has interactions with the offshore wind industry, notably Ørsted. Further details can be obtained from Prof Byron Byrne and Prof Chris Martin.