Today we see an industry-wide mismatch between design expectations and the as-built dynamics of offshore wind turbines installed on monopile foundations. This mismatch results in a sub-optimal (fatigue) design and ultimately a higher cost for offshore energy. It is the general consensus of both academia and industry that this is due to errors in the interaction between the monopile and the surrounding soil. Current soil-structure interaction models are not “tuned” to correctly assess the soil stiffness at small displacements for short and large diameter piles, i.e. monopiles. 

This project therefore aims to calibrate those models by updating them based on Finite element analysis and lab-experiments at UGent and the Coastal and Ocean Basin (COB) and measurements performed on all Belgian offshore wind turbines.  Moreover, the monitoring data will provide insight in the evolution of the soil behaviour during the lifetime of the structure. A unique dataset of monitoring data is already available to the project which includes both geotechnical and structural measurements. This information contained in this dataset needs to be converted to insights in geotechnical and structural behaviour, otherwise the potential of this dataset will not be unlocked.