General – TPPT
Bluewater Energy Services, Deltares, DEME Group, Lloyd’s Register, Port of Rotterdam, SBM Offshore, Shell, SOFEC, and TotalEnergies started a new project called Tubular Pile Pull-out Testing program (TPPT).
It focuses on the execution of static and dynamic tensile tests on four tubular mooring piles for floating offshore wind.
During the second half of 2022, the Port of Rotterdam carried out a programme for pile load compression tests on four tubular piles with a diameter of 1.22 m. In the TPPT project, the project team will re-use the same foundation piles to perform a series of tensile static and cyclic tests.
The piles are instrumented with a novel fibre optical measurement system to measure the load transfer along the full pile length. Finally, the results of the measurements will be evaluated against the Cone Penetration Tests (CPT) and to gain more insight into the effect of cyclic degradation occurring on the soil-pile interface versus depth.
The proposed load regimes in the tensile test program are based on the results from typical floating offshore wind foundation analyses. The pile top will be closed because it is expected that this pile top closure may impact the pile capacity under tensile loads.
It is expected that the test results will provide factual data to support the update of design guidelines.
Furthermore, a significant reduction of the anchor pile size of an expected 20% is anticipated. This could lead to substantial cost reductions and a reduction of the CO2 footprint of offshore floating wind projects.
