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Numerical modelling of large diameter piles under lateral loading for offshore
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DOI: 10.1201/b18442-105

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Numerical modelling of large diameter piles under lateral loading for
offshore wind applications
L. Zdravković, D.M.G. Taborda, D.M. Potts & R.J. Jardine
Imperial College London, UK
M. Sideri & F.C. Schroeder
Geotechnical Consulting Group, UK
B.W. Byrne, R. McAdam, H.J. Burd, G.T. Houlsby & C.M. Martin
University of Oxford, UK
K. Gavin, P. Doherty & D. Igoe
University College Dublin, Ireland
A. Muir Wood, D. Kallehave & J. Skov Gretlund
DONG Energy Wind Power, Denmark
ABSTRACT: There is currently a significant focus on developing offshore wind power in the UK and Europe.
The most common foundation type for wind turbines is a single large diameter pile, termed a monopile, on
which the turbine is located. As the diameter of such piles is envisaged to increase in future installations, there
are concerns that current design methods are not applicable. To explore this problem, the joint industry project
PISA has been established, with the aim to develop a new design framework for laterally loaded piles utilised
in the offshore wind industry, based on new theoretical developments, numerical modelling and large scale
field pile testing. This paper presents an overview of numerical modelling undertaken as part of the project.

1 INTRODUCTION This paper provides an overview of numerical

Development of the offshore wind energy sector is a
current major focus of the UK’s and Europe’s re-
newable energy policy. The most common offshore
wind farm installation involves sinking of large di-
ameter single piles (monopiles) as foundation sys-
tems on which turbines are located. Pile diameters,
D, of 5 m and 6 m are now routinely used, with D of
up to 10 m being considered for future designs.
There are concerns within the industry that existing
design methods, in particular the widely used p-y
approach, which were developed for much smaller
and more flexible piles, may not be appropriate for
the design of these large diameter stiff piles. To ex-
plore this problem the joint industry project PISA
(Pile Soil Analysis), coordinated by DONG Energy,
has been established with the aim of developing a
new design framework for laterally loaded piles for
the offshore wind industry.
The new development draws on the existing p-y
approach, but extends it by including additional soil
reaction components that are shown to be important
as D increases. For this purpose advanced 3D finite
element analyses have been performed, modelling
the monopile behavior in realistic ground conditions
encountered in the North Sea. The analyses results
are interpreted in the form of extracted soil reaction
curves, which are then normalised and parametrised
before being embedded in the new method. The
large scale field pile testing (Byrne et al. 2015a), as
part of the project, will serve as a benchmark for val-
idating both the finite element analyses and the new
design method.
modelling undertaken on the project, while the de-
velopment of the new design methodology is out-
lined in a companion paper Byrne et al. (2015b).
2 GROUND CONDITIONS
The objective of the PISA project is to consider two
distinct ground conditions likely to be encountered
in some sectors of the North Sea, a stiff overconsoli-
dated clay and a dense sand. As the planned large
scale field pile testing will be done onshore, the cho-
sen test sites also had to be representative of the re-
quired ground conditions. In this respect the site at
Cowden, UK, was deemed representative of stiff
overconsolidated clay tills, whereas the site at Dun-
kirk in northern France was chosen as a dense sand
site. Both sites have been characterised through pre-
vious research and testing programmes (Powell &
Butcher 2003, Chow 1997), providing the prelimi-
nary input for numerical analyses.
3 SCOPE OF THE NUMERICAL STUDY
To establish the backbone behavior of monopile/soil
interaction in conditions of lateral loading, all initial
finite element analyses simulate monotonic lateral
loading of piles, without considering pile installation
effects. Two sets of analyses are performed for each
site.
One set consists of analyses of selected test piles
in ground conditions of the site, with the purpose of
aiding the pile design and test loading stages. These
piles are of smaller diameters (i.e. D = 0.76 m and from triaxial tests on heavily over-consolidated sam-
2.1 m) compared to full scale piles, with length to ples showed their considerable distance from the
diameter ratios (L/D) of 3, 6 and 10 and a 10 m high original MCC ellipse, thus presenting the need for
stickup (h). the Hvorslev surface (Fig. 3).
The second set comprises parametric analyses of
full scale piles in idealised ground conditions which
are based on the test site, but are more representative
of North Sea settings. The dimensions of these piles
include D = 5, 7.5 and 10 m, L/D = 2 and 6, with
h/D = 5 and 15 to investigate the pile/soil interaction
due to both wave (low h/D) and wind (high h/D)
loading. The thickness of the pile walls, t, was also
varied. Additional finite element studies were con-
ducted with varying ground conditions.
All analyses are performed with the finite element
code ICFEP (Potts & Zdravković 1999), which em-
ploys a modified Newton-Raphson nonlinear solver,
with an error-controlled sub-stepping stress-point al-
gorithm.

4 CONSTITUTIVE MODELLING
4.1 Soil at Cowden
The stiff glacial clay till deposits at Cowden are
simulated using an expanded generalised version of Figure 1. Pore water pressure profile at Cowden.
the Modified Cam Clay (MCC) model (Potts &
Zdravković 1999). The model utilises a Hvorslev
surface on the dry side (Tsiampousi et al. 2013), the
general expression of Van Eekelen (1980) for the
soil strength variation in the deviatoric plane and it
simulates a nonlinear stiffness variation with strain,
with the model described in Taborda (2011).
Model calibration was iterative and based on the
available results from element tests (oedometer,
drained and undrained triaxial compression and ex-
tension) and from field measurements, all summa-
rised in Powell & Butcher (2003), with most data
pre-dating 2000s. Field measurements revealed an
under-drained pore water pressure (pwp) profile on
site and several layers of glacial till, underlain by
chalk at about 40 m depth (Fig. 1). The thick solid
line shows the pwp profile adopted for analyses of
test piles at Cowden, which is used for establishing
the initial effective stresses in the ground. The verti-
cal effective stress is calculated by prescribing the
bulk unit weight of the soil of 21.19 kN/m3. The hor-
izontal effective stress is then obtained by prescrib-
Figure 2. K0 profile at Cowden.
ing the K0 profile shown in Figure 2. The high meas-
ured superficial K0 values from oedometer swelling
tests were considered inconsistent with glaciation on The undrained strength profile, Su, in triaxial
the site and the K0 profile for analyses was therefore compression in Figure 4 shows significant scatter,
limited to 1.5 in the top 4 metres. which reflects the difficulty in obtaining good quali-
Different strengths measured at critical state in ty samples in clay tills. Model calibration was aimed
triaxial compression and extension (i.e. φ'TXC = 27o at matching the narrow band of strengths from
and φ'TXE = 32o) suggested strength dependency on pushed samples (black circles), which were identi-
Lode’s angle θ, and therefore the need for the Van fied by Powell & Butcher (2003) to be of a reasona-
Eekelen shape of deviatoric surface. Equally, plot- ble quality. The simulated profile is represented by a
ting the points of peak values of deviatoric stress black solid line in Figure 4.
 tion process is lengthy as several parameters em-
ployed by the model lack clear physical meaning and
have to be estimated indirectly. As in the Cowden
case, the model was calibrated from the available
field (Chow 1997) and laboratory experiments (Sim
et al. 2013, Aghakouchak 2015).

Figure 3. Fitting of the Hvorslev surface to experimental data

In a similar manner, the maximum shear stiffness,

G0, obtained from laboratory shear wave measure-
ments using the bender element technique (Fig. 5),
shows large scatter in particular in the shallow de-
posits. The in-situ geophysics reveals stiffness ani-
sotropy typical of overconsolidated clays. The con-
stitutive model simulates only an isotropic soil
stiffness due to the lack of data on the anisotropic
stiffness degradation with strain. The model calibra-
tion was aimed at matching the resonant column and
in-situ GVH data, producing the G0 profile that corre-
sponds to 800p' (solid line). The simulated degrada-
tion of the normalised isotropic secant shear stiffness
(Gsec/p') with strain level is shown in Figure 6. There Figure 4. Profile of Su in triaxial compression at Cowden.
is again a large scatter in existing data of small strain
stiffness, with also a very poor resolution at very
small strains, reflecting the capabilities of instru-
mentation at that time. The calibration was aimed at
matching the stiffness degradation of anisotropically
consolidated Magnus till from the North Sea.
All model parameters are summarised in Table 1.

4.2 Soil at Dunkirk

The behaviour of Dunkirk sand is reproduced using
a bounding surface plasticity model based on the
version by Papadimitriou & Bouckovalas (2002) and
modified by Taborda et al. (2014). The model utilis-
es the state parameter of Been & Jefferis (1985).
In general, the mechanical response of sands is de-
fined using four distinct surfaces of an open wedge
shape in general stress space: the yield surface which
encloses the elastic region; the critical state surface
whose opening corresponds to the ultimate strength
of the material in triaxial compression and exten-
sion; the bounding surface which controls the peak
Figure 5. Profile of G0 at Cowden.
strength and the post-peak softening to critical state;
and the dilatancy surface which establishes the sign Field explorations showed the ground profile
of the plastic volumetric strains. comprising a top 3 m layer of very dense sand fill,
In terms of elastic behaviour the model adopts a placed hydraulically between 1972 and 1975 to raise
Ramberg-Osgood type variation of the tangent shear the local ground level. This sand was dredged locally
modulus. and is of the same geological origin as the natural
The calibration of the model was carried out fol- Flandrian sand deposit underneath. The latter is a
lowing the strategy outlined in Taborda (2011), normally consolidated marine sand to about 30 m
which adopts a hierarchical approach. The calibra- depth, underlain by a marine clay which extends be-
neath part of the southern North Sea and occurs in
South East England as London Clay. The ground
water level (GWL) on site was found at 4 m depth,
without showing tidal variation. The pwp profile is
hydrostatic below GWL, with a linear variation
above GWL to 10 kPa suction at the ground surface.
stiffness in the laboratory (Kuwano 1999) and from
very precise local strain instrumentation
(Aghakouchak 2015). The so calibrated G0 profile
plots on the higher side of that interpreted from CPT
and seismic cone data of Chow (1997) (Fig. 9).
However, comparison with the latest results from
seismic dilatometer tests (SCPT) by the IN SITU site
investigation company (June 2014), carried out in
preparation of the Dunkirk site for pile testing,
shows a much closer agreement.
All model parameters are summarised in Table 2.

Figure 6. Shear stiffness degradation for Cowden till.

Table 1. Summary of MCC parameters for Cowden Till

Component
Strength (Van Eekelen, 1980)
Hvorslev surface – shape
Hvorslev surface –
plastic potential
Virgin consolidation line
Nonlinear elasticity –
bulk stiffness
Nonlinear elasticity –
shear stiffness
Nonlinear elasticity –
shear stiffness degradation Rmin = 0.05
Parameters
X=0.548; Y=0.698; Z=0.1
α = 0.25; n = 0.40 Figure 7. Determination of stress ratios at critical state.
β = 0.25; m = 0.40
v1 = 1.757; λ=0.062
κ = 0.0124
G0 = 80 MPa; p'ref = 100 kPa
a = 9.78E-5; b = 0.987;

Based on the interpretation of CPT data the rela-

tive density of the fill layer was estimated at 100%
and in the remaining Flandrian sand at 75% (Chow
1997), corresponding to the initial void ratios of Figure 8. Determination of the CSL in p' – e space.
0.570 and 0.628 respectively. For the initialisation of
the vertical effective stress bulk unit weights or 17.1
kN/m3 above and 19.9 kN/m3 below GWT were pre-
scribed, while the K0 for the whole normally consol-
idated deposit was estimated as 0.4 (Chow 1997).
The strength, in terms of the stress ratio q/p', in
triaxial compression and extension at critical state
(Mcc and Mec), was estimated from drained tests per-
formed at three different stress levels (p' = 150, 300,
500 kPa) after an initial anisotropic consolidation.
Figure 7 shows the relevant stress ratio – strain
curves from which Mcc = 1.28 and Mec = 0.92 are es-
timated, the former corresponding to φ'TXC = 32o.
As these tests were performed up to large defor-
mation levels it was possible to approximately iden-
tify the critical state points. By utilising these points
and the assumption that the position of the Critical
State Line (CSL) at p' = 0 kPa corresponds to the
maximum void ratio for this sand (0.91, Sim et al.
2013), the estimated CSL is shown in Figure 8.
The maximum shear modulus, G0, was estimated
from bender element measurements of elastic shear Figure 9. Profile of G0 at Dunkirk.
Table 2. Summary of bounding surface model parameters for
Dunkirk sand
Component Parameters
Critical State Line p'ref = 101.3 kPa; ecs,ref = 0.91;
λ = 0.135; ξ = 0.179
Strength Mcc = 1.28; Mec = 0.92
Model surfaces kcb = 4.94; kcd = 0.50; m = 0.065
p'YS = 1.0 kPa; A0 = 1.20
Hardening modulus h0 = 0.01; α = 1.0; γ = 0.0;
β = 0.0; µ = 1.0
Nonlinear elasticity –
small strain stiffness B = 916.0; ν = 0.17
Nonlinear elasticity –
stiffness degradation a1 = 0.35; γ1 = 2.0E-3; κ = 2.0
Fabric tensor H0 = 0.0; ζ = 0.0
4.3 Idealisation of ground conditions
The 3D finite element analyses of test piles are per-
formed in the Cowden and Dunkirk ground condi-
tions as described above, with constitutive models
and model parameters summarised in Tables 1 & 2,
respectively. For the analyses of full scale large di-
ameter monopiles the ground conditions were ideal-
ised for closer representation of the North Sea condi-
tions. This was achieved by adopting a single layer
of clay till and dense sand, respectively, with hydro-
static pwp profile from the ground surface, as shown
in the example of the idealised clay till in Figure 1.
This causes a reduction in the effective stresses,
which manifests itself in slight changes in various
profiles, as shown in Figures 2, 4, 5 and 9. The mod-
el parameters in both cases remain unchanged.
4.4 Other materials
The tubular steel piles are modeled as elastic, with
Young’s modulus of 200 GPa and a Poisson’s ratio
of 0.3.
An interface between the pile and the soil outside
the pile is modelled such that it can allow a gap to
open around the pile during lateral loading. In the
stiff clay till conditions, this interface is simulated
with a Tresca model, such that in compression it
adopts the undrained strength of the surrounding soil
(Fig. 4), whereas the strength in tension is limited to
zero. In the dense sand soil conditions, the interface
is represented with a Mohr-Coulomb model, pre-
scribing φ' = 32o and cohesion c' = 0 kPa. Conse-
quently, if respectively the total or effective normal
stress at the interface becomes less than 0 kPa, a gap
will open.
5 NUMERICAL MODEL
A typical 3D finite element mesh for all piles is
shown in Figure 10. Due to geometric and loading
symmetry, it is sufficient to model only half of the
problem. The soil is discretised with 20-noded hexa-
hedral displacement-based isoparametric elements,
the pile is represented with 8-noded shell elements
(Schroeder et al. 2007) and the interface between the
pile and the soil with 16-noded zero-thickness inter-
face elements (Day & Potts 1994).
The horizontal load at pile top (at z = h) is applied
in a displacement controlled manner, with incre-
ments of uniform displacement in the x-direction
around the pile perimeter. The horizontal load, H, on
the pile is then obtained as the reaction to the applied
displacements. Loading is undrained in the clay and
drained in the sand.
Figure 10. Typical FE mesh for monopile analyses.
6 RESULTS
Only brief FE results are presented here to show the
global monopile/soil interaction under monotonic
lateral loading. The results from large scale mono-
pile analyses in a stiff glacial till are taken as an ex-
ample, although the trends are the same for test piles
and for dense sand ground conditions.
Figure 11 shows the load (at application point)
versus the displacement (at mudline) curves for D =
10 m piles, in which L, h and t were varied. The dis-
placements are significantly larger than would nor-
mally be required for design, where typically 10% of
pile diameter is defined as ULS failure. This was
necessary so that the extracted soil reaction curves
could be fully defined. In addition, Figure 12 shows
the deflected shapes of the same piles for the case
when the horizontal displacement at mudline reaches
0.1D (nominal failure).
The main observations from these two figures in-
clude: increase in pile load capacity with increasing
L and reduction in pile load capacity with increasing
h, other geometric parameters remaining the same;
negligible effect of pile wall thickness on both the
load capacity and pile deflection; a rigid body de-
formation of shorter piles, with longer piles behav-
ing in a more flexible manner. The latter observation
is characteristic of all stages of loading, even at very
small displacements. The observed “kick-back” of
shorter piles, with fairly large displacements mobi-
lised at the pile base, justifies the starting hypothesis
of the new design method in that additional soil re-
action components have to be considered compared
to the conventional p-y approach. How this is done is
described in Byrne et al. (2015b). Results in Figures
11 & 12 are also typical of all other pile geometries
and ground conditions considered in this study.
Figure 11. Load-displacement curves for D = 10 m piles in stiff
clay till.
Figure 12. Deflections of D = 10 m piles in stiff clay till.
7 CONCLUSIONS
The paper presents development of a numerical
model for finite element analyses of laterally loaded
monopiles for wind turbines, as the basis of the new
design methodology for such piles. The analyses re-
sults have revealed the likely mechanisms of mono-
pile/soil interaction, in particular in the cases of
shorter and stubbier piles, confirming that the con-
ventional p-y methodology is unlikely to be suitable
for the design of such piles.
8 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Authors acknowledge the generous funding
support of the partners of this project, including the
View publication stats
Carbon Trust through the Offshore Wind Accelera-
tor, DONG Energy, Iberdrola, RWE, SSE, Statoil,
Statkraft, Vattenfall, Alstom and EDF.
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