The effect of scour on the dynamic response of an offshore wind turbine

Wind turbines are dynamically sensitive structures, with excitation forces arising from the rotor spinning at a specific angular velocity and the blade passing the turbine tower at a set frequency. It is critical that the structural design of the turbine is undertaken in such a way that the system natural frequency resides away from the resonant excitation bands. This will become increasingly important over the next decade as turbines evolve and the operational frequency bands change. The system natural frequency is governed by the structural properties of the turbine tower and the nacelle weight, combined with the stiffness of the soil-foundation elements. An accurate estimate of the soil stiffness is crucial to ensure a realistic model of the overall turbine behaviour. Over 75% of offshore wind turbines currently have monopile foundations, which are designed as a soft-stiff system, with the functional design frequency of the turbine structure falling between the upper and lower excitation frequency bands. The dynamic stability of the foundation is provided by the interaction between the monopile shaft and the adjacent soil strata. In this paper, the effect of scour on the frequency response of an offshore wind turbine is investigated numerically for a range of different soil densities. The turbine system is modelled using simple numerical modelling techniques. Euler-Bernoulli beam elements are used to model the tower. Altered versions of these elements are used to model the monopile, with an extra node and degree of freedom to allow the input of lateral soil stiffness into the model. The nacelle and rotor system is modelled as a lumped mass at the top of the turbine tower. In-situ CPT-based approaches are used for modelling the soil stiffness. The effect of scour is investigated for each design case.