A study on bending moment bearing characteristics of tetrapod suction jackets in sandy soil after cycling
Offshore wind power foundations face tens of millions of cyclical loads over a 25-year service life.Therefore,a physical model test in the sandy soil foundation was carried out to study the influence of cyclic loading on the ultimate bending moment capacity of the tetrapod suction jackets.The cylindrical foundation of four-cylinder suction jacket was introduced,and the sand foundation was prepared and tested.The cyclic load amplitude ratio and the effect of three different ways of luffing loading on the unidirectional ultimate bearing capacity was systematically analyzed.The cyclic cumulative rotation angle was analyzed also.Simultaneously,the function fitting on the relationship between the bearing capacity and the change of above variables was performed.The results show that the amplitude ratio of cyclic loads and flexural capacity increase roughly in direct proportion,and that the plastic deformation around the tube foundation gradually increases,causing the accumulated rotation angle to increase nonlinearly.The ultimate bending moment capacity of the offshore wind turbine is not significantly affected by the variable-amplitude cyclic loading experiment,regardless of whether the loading is in increasing or decreasing order,for the long-term cyclic action of more than 80,000 times.