REDWIN – REDucing cost in offshore WINd by integrated structural and geotechnical design

Abstract

The cost of offshore wind energy production has to be reduced continuously to improve its competitiveness compared to other energy sources. To contribute to this goal, a 4- year research project REDWIN – REDucing cost of offshore WINd by structural and geotechnical integrated design – is currently ongoing, addressing the challenge of integrating the geotechnical discipline in the design process. The project aims to develop foundation and soil models to be used in dynamic time-domain analyses of offshore wind turbine structures. A library of models has been developed for representation of the most common foundation types. The models can be applied to different ground conditions by site-specific model input. To make the models applicable for practical usage, it has been important to balance the need for computational effectiveness against the need for accuracy. Studies so far indicate that the foundation models improve the accuracy in the integrated analyses.