Seismic Behavior of Offshore Wind Turbine with Suction Caisson Foundation

Offshore wind energy plays a major role in the long-term goal of relying on renewable energy. The demand for offshore wind energy is increasing rapidly in the world. However, the construction of offshore wind farm in seismic active areas has strict requirements for the foundation selection and design. In this study, a group of earthquake centrifuge tests was performed on the wind turbine models with suction caisson foundation in order to evaluate the resistance to earthquake loading. The results showed that the seismic induced lateral displacement and settlement of offshore wind turbine foundation can be mitigated by increasing the caisson diameter, skirt length, and weight of the foundation.