Large scale experiments to improve monopile scour protection design adapted to climate change

Offshore wind farms contribute significantly to contemporary renewable energy production. By installing these offshore structures, new technical design challenges arise, such as foundation optimisation. Present LCoE (Levelized Cost of Electricity) of offshore wind turbines amounts up to 170 Euro/MWh (Crown Estate, 2015), but the ambition is to reduce this by 2020 to 90 Euro/MWh (EY, 2015). Offshore wind turbine foundation costs are 20 % of the total costs in the case of a monopile (NREL, 2014). An important part of those costs is related to the foundation's scour protection. Therefore, optimisations in the design of the scour protection are indispensable.Another promising track to reduce the costs of offshore wind turbines is their lifetime extension. Recent studies (Crown Estate, 2015) show that a 5 year lifetime extension can reduce the cost per kWh by 6 %. To check the feasibility of a lifetime extension, it will be necessary to diagnose or inspect the conditions of several core parts of the turbines, notably its foundation and scour protection. Therefore, more fundamental insight into the (longer term damage) behaviour of the scour protection around the monopile is needed.Beside the interest in design optimisation and lifetime extension, the influence of climate change needs to be investigated in more detail. Climate change will increase the design storm conditions and influence the scour protection stability. Therefore, research towards a risk-based design will help to evaluate the functionality of scour protection already installed and improve the design of future scour protections adapted to climate change.Based on the above motivations, the main research objective is to establish a basic benchmark dataset on the stability of scour protection around monopile foundations to serve as a basis for model tests in other flumes in the future (rather than to carry out a traditional sensitivity study with a fine resolution for all governing parameters). To achieve the goals, scour researchers from several institutions are set to start work on a collaborative project at HR Wallingford's Fast Flow Facility (FFF) as part of PROTEUS, an EU-funded Hydralab+ project. Hydralab+ which is funded by the EU's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme brings together facilities and researchers in experimental hydraulic and hydrodynamics.The research project aims to improve the design of scour protection around offshore wind turbine monopiles, as well as future-proofing them against the impacts of climate change. PROTEUS, which stands for the 'PRotection of Offshore wind Turbine monopilEs against Scouring' will facilitate the conducting of a series of large scale experiments over a seven week period in the FFF flume at HR Wallingford's UK physical modelling facilities.Partners involved in PROTEUS are: Department of Civil Engineering at Ghent University, HR Wallingford (UK), the Ludwig-Franzius Institute for Hydraulic, Estuarine and Coastal Engineering at the University of Hannover, the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Porto, the Geotechnics division of the Belgian Department of Mobility and Public Works, and International Marine and Dredging Consultants (IMDC nv)