Undrained Response of Bucket Foundations to Moment Loading

Bucket foundation as a large cylindrical structure that is open at the base and closed at the top, is recently being used within the offshore wind turbines projects. The bearing capacity of bucket foundations to moment loading in undrained soil is of interest particularly to the offshore geotechnical engineers. This paper presents the experimental and numerical results of moment loading on small scale models of bucket foundations installed on Yoldia clay. The moment loading is experienced via the horizontal forces applied to features on a tower installed on bucket foundations. Different arm lengths of 261 cm, 174 cm and 11 cm were used in this study in order to apply three different moment loading conditions and the obtained experimental results were validated with the numerical simulations in which the undrained shear strength of the soil was varied. At final stage, the yield locus describing the load combinations at failure in the horizontal, vertical and moment loading coordinate system (H-V-M) are presented