Abstract
In the renewables offshore industry, structures of wind turbines are very often founded on driven, steel open ended piles. With the increasing size and power of the turbines, the dimension of the piles is increasing year after year and the pile wall is more and more exposed to damages during driving, particularly at the toe. This risk is significant where the soil is characterized by stones, flints or boulders, which during pile driving operations could trigger the local buckling of tip steel wall.
This paper presents the results of a numerical study of the behavior of a flint or boulder (assumed circular) under dynamic loading, which is part of a wider research frame where the pile tip buckling is numerically investigated. Flints occur usually within a weak chalky formation and they can potentially be displaced by the pile tip during penetration. However, when the pile wall tip hits a flint or a boulder (like in glacial tills), a significant punctual force may arise and thus a reduction of the driving energy is envisaged to avoid pile tip damage. Conclusions are drawn in terms of the dynamic force needed to displace a flint/boulder embedded in a softer soil matrix.
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Acknowledgments
The Authors acknowledge Cathie Associates staff for its support and professor Guido Musso of the Politecnico di Torino for his contribution.
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Nicolini, E., Gargarella, P. (2019). Numerical Study of Flint/Boulder Behavior During Pile Driving. In: Randolph, M., Doan, D., Tang, A., Bui, M., Dinh, V. (eds) Proceedings of the 1st Vietnam Symposium on Advances in Offshore Engineering. VSOE 2018. Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering , vol 18. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2306-5_24
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2306-5_24
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