Development and application of a computational model for scour around offshore wind turbine foundations

There is a constant requirement to understand scour especially regarding its prevention, due to the potential impact and disastrous consequences. The installation of offshore wind turbines is haunted by scour mitigation and at the start of the offshore wind turbine boom in the early 2000’s this was achieved using overzealous amounts of rock armour. However, as investment and cost efficiency has increased, protection methods have been refined, but, there remains significant room for improvement.Research into offshore sediment dynamics has benefited greatly by computational advancements providing a greater understanding of processes and the driving mechanisms; leading to protection method improvements and reductions in environmental impact. The premise of this study is to push this knowledge further, by developing and validating a novel scour model within CFD software that can be used to simulate and analyse offshore scour; specifically, the scour around complex, new offshore wind turbine foundation geometries