IHCantabria starts testing marine foundations in support of marine renewable energy development

Offshore wind energy has a key role to play in the path towards a low-carbon economy, and offers the opportunity to exploit 80% of Europe’s wind resources, which are located in shallow and deep water sites, with foundation solutions needing to be optimized.

The Environmental Hydraulics Institute of the Universidad de Cantabria (IHCantabria) has launched experimental tests on marine foundations as part of the development of this research line of the Offshore Engineering and Marine Energies group of IHCantabria. The recently performed tests are full-scale pile driving tests, this type of tests evaluate the resistance of the ground and are crucial to ensure the suitability of the ground and to correctly dimension the foundations.

These experimental tests reproduce the penetration of metallic elements of marine foundations, on an anti-socavation protection placed on a sandy seabed, with the aim of analyzing their behavior during the installation of marine foundations. The results of the study will make it possible to quantify the penetration resistance of these metallic elements, and thus to evaluate how this resistance varies at the interface between the protection and a sandy seabed, characterized by a granular material of smaller size and lower resistance.

The tests are being carried out at IHCantabria’s facilities, in the institute’s 5x5x2.5 m soil tank. The advances obtained will contribute to reinforce IHCantabria’s capabilities in the design of anti-socavation protections -whose physical tests are usually carried out at the Cantabria Soil Tank of Maritime Engineering (CCOB)- and in the design of offshore foundations, such as large steel pillars for wind turbines, or steel lattice structures with multiple legs, used to support offshore electrical substations.

The conception of these tests arose as a consequence of the R&D&I project “Advanced Methodology for the foundation of critical structures in offshore wind farms (CREMA)” and are framed within the project “Fluid-Structure-Terrain Interaction for the development of solutions for offshore wind energy at great depths by means of tensioned or semi-tensioned mooring systems (INFLUET)”. Both projects aim to reduce the costs and environmental impact of future wind farms by generating new knowledge focused on different foundation solutions, both in shallow waters (fixed structures) and in deep waters (floating structures).

The results of these studies will help to boost Spain’s technological leadership in offshore renewable energies and will be relevant for technologists and developers, as they will provide very important information on design requirements and optimal solutions for the commercial deployment of offshore wind turbines. All this, in order to move towards safer and more efficient designs, improving the technical and economic viability of future offshore wind farms and favoring an energy transition towards clean and sustainable renewable sources.

(INFLUET)” (PID2023-153306OB-I00) funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ and by “FEDER/UE”.

(CREMA) (TED2021-130780B-I00) funded by MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ and by “European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR”.