An assessment of field data for scour at offshore wind turbine foundations

Whitehouse, R.J.S. and Harris, J. and Sutherland, J. and Rees, J. (2008) An assessment of field data for scour at offshore wind turbine foundations. In: ICSE 2008 (4th International Conference on Scour and Erosion), 5-7 November 2008, Tokyo.

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Abstract

A range of offshore wind farm projects has been built in recent years to help satisfy the increasing demand for ‘clean energy’ through renewable resources. The development of scour due to waves and currents around the installed foundations has been monitored and the data for five contrasting sites has been analysed in the present paper. The site specific nature of scour at the five sites is discussed and the results are presented in a comparative fashion. At one of the sites the seabed is underlain by a marine clay which has (to date) limited the development of scour at those turbines, whilst those sites with unconstrained depths of sandy sediments show a deeper scour depth develops. Based on the combined results from the five sites conclusions are drawn about the range of scour depth development that can be expected and a number of recommendations are made to improve the understanding of scour development at offshore wind farm foundations.

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