Cyclic response of suction caissons in calcareous sand
PhD student
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Nazish Ullah |
Supervisors
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A/Prof Shiaohuey Chow | Prof Yinghui Tian | A/Prof George Anoyatis
| A/Prof Stijn Francois
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Project Start Date: March 2023
Project Details
One of the critical challenges in offshore wind turbine projects is to design reliable and cost-effective foundations to safely transfer the load of wind turbine and resist environmental loading. Suction caissons have gained popularity as offshore wind foundations due to their high load capacity, cost-effectiveness and easy installation. Numerous studies have been conducted to investigate the soil-caisson interaction in clay and typical sands. However, less attention has been paid to suction caissons in calcareous sands, particularly their performances under long-term cyclic loading during the wind turbine’s life span. Long term loading cycles negatively effects the capacity of offshore foundations due to strain accumulation and rotation. This joint University of Melbourne (UoM) and KU Leuven project aims to accurately predict the long-term performance for suction caissons in calcareous sand subjected to cyclic loading using physical and finite element (FE) modelling. Laboratory element testing will be conducted to generate a comprehensive test database for the calcareous sand. This database will serve the purpose of calibrating the soil model parameters for the FE analyses and verifying the model performance at element level. Physical scaled model tests will be conducted to provide insights into the cyclic soil-caisson interaction. The results from this study will allow better understanding of long-term cyclic performance of suction caissons in calcareous sand.