Validation of an experimental system for testing monopiles

Monopiles remain the most versatile and popular way of supporting offshore wind turbines. Most of the existing information on the performance of monopiles is based on 1g testing. However, a better response of such a system can be obtained if the stresses acting along the monopile can be varied to represent in situ conditions. The work reported in this article attempted to achieve this using elevated stress gradients acting along the length of a soil bed (thus still using the 1g model testing hypothesis). The results obtained through preliminary research are presented herein as a proof-of-concept for the suggested test method. The observations suggest that progressive displacements ceased after a significantly low number of loading cycles as opposed to thousands of loading cycles reported when the tests were conducted under 1g conditions (i.e. natural stress gradient) as reported by previous researchers.