Geotechnical Design of Offshore Monopiles: Enhancing Efficiency and Expanding Analytical Scope

This paper presents a part of the automation approach developed and applied at Doris UK for the geotechnical design check of monopile foundations used for offshore wind turbine structures in the early design stages (feasibility study, concept/pre-FEED). In this discussion, the state-of-practice design method for monopiles, namely the PISA rule-based design, is combined with the expert Python programming feature of Plaxis Monopile Designer software. This combination enables the checking of a wide range of configurations for monopile dimensions in a consistent manner. The automation process allows for quick production of useful data and graphs, providing engineers with suitable design diameters and embedment ranges. This facilitates clear communication with the wider multi-disciplinary design team and generates supporting materials for design reports and meetings. It is believed that the examples presented in this paper will encourage the development of similar tools for various other design needs.