Monopile Foundations for Offshore Wind Turbines

• Main Authors: Kurian, V.J., Ganapathy, C.
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
• Online Access: http://eprints.utp.edu.my/2362/1/SBI-O2-INFR-06-Kurian.pdf; http://eprints.utp.edu.my/2362/

Abstract- Renewable energy has attracted a great deal of attention among academics, industries and governments all over the world in recent times. Wind energy has catered to the increasing demand for pollution-free production of energy. in a number of countries, offshore wind turbines are being used to convert the energy from wind over the oceans to electric energy. Offshore winds flow at higher speed than onshore winds over a much larger space. More than fifteen offshore European wind facilities with turbine ratings of 450 kW to 4 MW exist today in very shallow waters of 5 to 15 m. Offshore wind turbines are bigger compared to onshore wind turbines, and the tower heights are in the range of 60 to 80 m. The costs of building and maintaining the turbines and transmitting the power back to shore also increase sharply as the distance from land increases. Three different types of foundations have been used generally to support offshore wind mills. They are gravity based, monopile and torpid foundations. Monopiles with diameters reaching up to 6 m are used on most offshore projects. The objective of this paper is to review the parameters of design of the monopile foundations for offshore wind turbines. The environmental loads would be calculated for specific cases. Keywords: offshore wind energy, monopile foundation, wind turbines, environmental load.