Distributed Acoustic Sensing for the Geotechnical Assessment of Offshore Renewable Developments

This paper discusses a recent technological addition to the field of offshore geotechnical investigation. Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) utilises fibre optic cables as continuous sensing elements, measuring small strain imposed on the glass core by the transmission of acoustic energy along the sea bed / water interface ( Trafford et al. 2021 , Trafford et al. 2022a ). The potential benefits of this over traditional sediment profiling methods is the rapid data acquisition over large scale arrays. As well as providing detailed information for the design of offshore foundations the potential to deploy extensive linear arrays make the proposed methodology ideal for the assessment of linear investigations such as transmission cable route options.