ZHOU Jian-hua, ZHANG Jin-jie, XING Zhan-qing (Beijing IWHR Technology Co., Ltd, Beijing 100038, China)

Abstracts: The driven-pile is the most common foundation for the offshore wind turbine. The load bearing capacity of a single pile is a very important parameter for evaluating the design and installation of the pile foundation. The high strain technology is a widely used method to measure the load bearing capacity of the pile. In order to get the limit bearing capacity of the pile, it is usual to drive the pile with the hammer after the pile has been installed. But this technology can not implemented for offshore wind turbine foundations because of the restriction of the marine construction environment and project cost. The excess pore water pressure caused by the driving pile is calculated with finite element method. By use of the high strain technology, the initial load bearing capacity of a pile can be obtained. The load bearing capacity of a single pile is estimated with the excess pore water pressure and the initial bearing capacity of the pile, this numerical method is valid because the calculation results agree with the field data, and this method has been used in the marine project. This method has provided reasonable evidences for the foundation design and mearsure of the similar projects.

Key words: load bearing capacity of a single pile; excess pore water pressure; time effect; high strain Technology

Published in: Journal of China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research (Vol. 10 No. 1 March. 2012)