Natural Frequency
Natural Frequency
Natural Frequency
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: A nonlinear finite element model is developed to examine the lateral behaviors of monopiles, which
Received 24 July 2017 support offshore wind turbines (OWTs) chosen from five different offshore wind farms in Europe. The
Received in revised form simulation is using this model to accurately estimate the natural frequency of these slender structures, as
10 October 2017
a function of the interaction of the foundations with the subsoil. After a brief introduction to the wind
Accepted 12 November 2017
Available online 13 March 2018
power energy as a reliable alternative in comparison to fossil fuel, the paper focuses on concept of natural
frequency as a primary indicator in designing the foundations of OWTs. Then the range of natural fre-
quencies is provided for a safe design purpose. Next, an analytical expression of an OWT natural fre-
Keywords:
Nonlinear finite element analysis
quency is presented as a function of soil-monopile interaction through monopile head springs
Vertical slices model characterized by lateral stiffness KL, rotational stiffness KR and cross-coupling stiffness KLR, of which the
Monopiles under horizontal loading differences are discussed. The nonlinear pseudo three-dimensional finite element vertical slices model
Natural frequency has been used to analyze the lateral behaviors of monopiles supporting the OWTs of different wind farm
Monopile head stiffness sites considered. Through the monopiles head movements (displacements and rotations), the values of
Offshore wind turbines (OWTs) KL, KR and KLR were obtained and substituted in the analytical expression of natural frequency for
comparison. The comparison results between computed and measured natural frequencies showed an
excellent agreement for most cases. This confirms the convenience of the finite element model used for
the accurate estimation of the monopile head stiffness.
Ó 2018 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by
Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
1. Introduction that offshore wind energy will play an increasingly important role
in the future development. This is supported by the fact that all
Wind, solar power and geothermal heat are representative of principal wind turbine manufacturers currently are spending huge
clean and renewable energy which have the potential to become amount of money and effort on developing larger offshore WTGs
alternatives to current supplement of fossil fuel sources of energy in for deeper waters where wind speed is generally higher and
the future. While these alternative energy sources have their ad- steadier, resulting in an increase in energy output.
vantages and drawbacks, wind energy is widely accepted as the Although there are many OWTs support options which may
cheapest and most economically available one based on current range from gravity foundations (for shallow depths of 0e15 m) to
technology. Today, wind energy has proven to be a valuable feature floating foundations (for very deep waters of 60e200 m) (Achmus
for large-scale future investment in the energy industries world- et al., 2009; Lombardi et al., 2013; Damgaard et al., 2015; Abed et al.,
wide, and many countries install their proper wind turbine gen- 2016), most OWTs are supported on monopile foundations, as they
erators (WTGs), mainly on land. As offshore wind turbines (OWTs) are simple structures which are easy and convenient to construct.
have gained their popularity, many WTG manufacturers believe The accumulated experience from limited monitored data from
OWTs over the last 15 years showed that the available design
procedures (mostly contained in the API (API and ISO, 2011) and
DNV (DNV-OS-J101, 2004) regulation codes suffer limitations.
* Corresponding author. The existing methods were established/calibrated by testing
E-mail address: d_amarbouzid@yahoo.fr (D. Amar Bouzid).
small-diameter piles used for supporting offshore platforms in gas
Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics,
Chinese Academy of Sciences. and oil industry, often with design criteria and loading conditions
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2017.11.010
1674-7755 Ó 2018 Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-
NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
334 D. Amar Bouzid et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 333e346
which are different from those encountered in an OWT. The inap- actual operational frequency when the wind turbines are
propriateness of these methods comes from the fact that: constructed.
The natural frequency of the hub-tower-foundation system is
(1) The continuum (soil) is replaced by a series of uncoupled the key feature on which the response of an OWT to wind and wave
springs. However, reliable results necessitate a rigorous loads depends. This is due to the dynamic nature of the loads on the
method which can properly account for the true deformation wind turbine structure and the slenderness of the system. Through
mechanism of soil-monopile interaction. determination of the natural frequency, designer can assess the
(2) As they rotate freely, monopiles supporting OWT energy strains produced by loading cycles, through which the fatigue
converters undergo severe degradation in the upper soil failure of the structure can be ascertained. Therefore, an accurate
layer resulting from cyclic loading, whereas offshore jacket estimation of this parameter is essential to assess the working life
piles are significantly restrained against rotation at their of a wind turbine.
heads. Unlike most large-scale civil engineering structures, wind tur-
(3) Monopiles are relatively shorter and rigid piles with a length bines are subjected to millions of periodic excitation cycles during
to diameter ratio (Lp/Dp) in the range of 2e6 and a diameter their operating life. The rotor spinning at a given velocity induces
(Dp) of up to 8 m envisaged for the next generation of tur- mass imbalances (gyroscopic effect), causing a frequency known as
bines, whereas offshore piled foundations in the offshore oil 1P. In addition to this, the effect of a standard turbine having n
and gas industry have a length to diameter ratio (Lp/Dp) of blades induces a further excitation due to the blades passing the
over 30 and relevant recommendations have been set on the tower. The frequency of this shadowing effect is nP, where n ¼ 3 in
basis of full-scale loading tests on long, slender and flexible most cases.
piles with a diameter of 0.61 m (Reese et al., 1974). The modern installed wind turbines are characterized by a range
(4) The API model is calibrated in response to a small number of of different velocities in which their rotors are operating. This re-
cycles for offshore fixed platform applications. However, an sults in two ranges of operating frequencies around 1P and 3P. In
OWT over its lifetime of 20e25 years may undergo 107e108 order to avoid resonance, the natural frequency of the tower cannot
cycles of loading. be in any of these two ranges and must be far from 1P and 3P.
The OWT design can be performed in such a way that the first
Due to these complex issues, appropriate determination of the eigenfrequency lies within three possible ranges: softesoft, softe
dynamic characteristics of these extremely complex structures stiff and stiffestiff as shown in Fig. 1.
through their monopiles head stiffnesses is continuing to challenge
designers, as the foundation of an OWT behavior is still not (1) Softesoft range: the natural frequency is less than the lower
well understood, and also not introduced in the current design bound of 1P. This implies that the structure is too flexible,
guidelines. and moreover, this is a range where the frequency of waves
Concerning accurate prediction of the monopile head stiff- may lie, therefore leading to resonance.
nesses, numerical analysis using the finite element method (FEM) (2) Stiffestiff range: this is a range where the tower frequency is
constitutes an excellent alternative to capture the real behavior of higher than the upper bound of blade passing frequency (3P).
this type of foundations and hence to accurately estimate the dy- This range is economically unfeasible as it leads to a too rigid
namic characteristics of an OWT. (heavy and expensive) structure, making it inappropriate for
Otsmane and Amar Bouzid (2018) formulated a nonlinear design.
pseudo three-dimensional (3D) computation method, combining (3) Softestiff range: in this interval, the natural frequency lies
the FEM and the finite difference method (FDM). They wrote a between 1P and 3P. This range is the optimum range for the
Fortran computer code called NAMPULAL (nonlinear analysis of best possible design.
monopiles under lateral and axial loadings) to study monopiles
under axial, lateral and moment loadings in a medium charac- The system stiffness must be such that the natural frequency of
terized by the hyperbolic model for representing the stresse the wind turbine does not lie within the rotor frequency excitation
strain relationships. In this paper, we attempt to apply NAMPU- bands, as this may induce resonance which could lower the design
LAL to examining the lateral behavior of monopiles supporting life significantly.
OWTs chosen from five different offshore wind farms in In order to satisfy these requirements and to keep the natural
Europe. These offshore wind farms include Lely A2 (UK), Irene frequency of the whole structure in the adequate margin of the
Vorrink (Netherlands), Kentish Flats (UK), Walney 1 (UK) and softestiff range, thus avoiding resonance, a joint effort between
Noth Hoyle (UK). foundation designers and turbine manufacturers is performed.
To accurately estimate the natural frequency of the OWT Foundation designers need careful site investigations to obtain
structure (tower þ substructure) which is a function of monopile- reliable soil data in order to correctly assess the foundation
subsoil interaction, the monopiles head movements (displace- stiffness.
ments and rotations) and consequently, the lateral stiffness KL, the
rotational stiffness KR and the cross-coupling stiffness KLR are ob- 2.1. Appropriate OWT modeling for dynamic analysis
tained and substituted in the analytical expression of natural fre-
quency for comparison. In general, the results of comparison The natural frequency of a wind turbine is highly dependent on
between the computed and measured natural frequencies showed the material properties used in its construction, and is significantly
a good agreement. affected by the stiffness of the soil surrounding the monopile.
Assessment of foundation stiffness is the key to obtain reliable
2. Natural frequency and modal analysis estimate of system frequency.
In the computation of eigenfrequency f1, most researchers in the
OWTs are dynamically sensitive structures, in which the dy- past tried to model this complex system according principally to
namic soil-structure interaction is a pivotal aspect of their design two concepts (Prendergast et al., 2015; Yi et al., 2015). In the first
process and consequently, they require accurate soil stiffness esti- one, Yi et al. (2015) simply considered the soil as a medium having
mation in order to ensure that the design frequency matches the an infinite stiffness. In this regard, Vught (2000) used a model in
D. Amar Bouzid et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 333e346 335
Fig. 1. Forcing frequencies against power spectral density for a three-bladed wind turbine (Hz).
which the wind turbine is considered as an inverted pendulum frequency equation, Arany et al. (2014, 2015) derived expressions of
having a flexural rigidity EI, a tower mass per meter mT and a top natural frequency of OWTs on three-spring flexible foundations by
mass mt. Expression for the first eigenfrequency is given by means of two beam models: Bernoulli-Euler and Timoshenko. The
natural frequencies in both cases have been obtained numerically
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
3:04EI from the resulting transcendental equations. They proposed a
f1 y (1) closed-form expression containing, in addition to KL and KR, the
ðmt þ 0:227 mT LT Þ4p2 L3T
cross-coupling stiffness KLR of the monopile. Their equation for the
natural frequency is
where LT is the tower height. The natural frequency expressed by
Eq. (1) is based on a uniform tower cross-section. A slight different
expression has been proposed by Blevins (2001): fh ¼ CR CL fFB (3)
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi where fFB is called fixed base frequency which can be either Eq. (1)
3EI
f1 y (2) or (2). The factors CR and CL account for the stiffness provided by the
ðmt þ 33mT LT =140 Þ4p2 L3T monopile, and are functions of tower’s geometrical properties.
Their analytical expressions are given by
It seems from the first sight that these equations are based on a
simple model which ignores the fact that the tower is tubular and
1
conical in shape and generally does not have a constant wall CR ¼ 1 (4)
h2
thickness. Additionally, Eqs. (1) and (2) depend only on the tower 1 þ a hR hLR
L
geometrical and mechanical properties without taking into account
the OWT foundation characteristics. This physically does not make
1
sense, as the monopile head movements that occur as a result of the CL ¼ 1 (5)
h2
applied loading on the tower can lead to a finite stiffness of the 1 þ b hL hLR
R
monopile-subsoil system. This obviously has an influence on the
value of the first natural frequency and shows that the service limit where
computations based on Eqs. (1) and (2) are inaccurate.
.
Bearing in mind that the dynamic analysis of the whole system 9
hL ¼ KL L3T EIh >
composed of tower-monopile-soil is hard to perform, Prendergast >
=
et al. (2015) tried to find a natural frequency expression consid- hR ¼ KR LT =EI
.h (6)
hLR ¼ KLR L2T EIh >
>
ering soil stiffness (Zaaijer, 2006; Yu et al., 2014; Prendergast et al., ;
2015). Alternatively, they replaced the subsoil-monopile system by a ¼ 0:6; b ¼ 0:5
a set of springs through which the tower is connected to the subsoil,
as shown in Fig. 2. This figure illustrates a mechanical model, in where a and b are the empirical constants, which have been ob-
which the subsoil-monopile interaction is represented by four tained by fitting closed-form curves; EIh is the equivalent tower
springs, i.e. a lateral, a rocking, a cross-coupling and a vertical bending stiffness; and h is the soil-foundation interaction coeffi-
spring whose stiffnesses are KL, KR, KLR and KV, respectively. Most cient depending on tower’s bending stiffness. The applicability of
researchers disregarded the axial vibrations since the wind tur- Eqs. (4) and (5) is conditioned by
bines are very stiff vertically.
The stiffness of these springs which represent the subsoil- 9
h2 >
monopile interaction may be estimated from the monopile head hR > 1:2 LR >
>
>
load-deformation curves, provided that these curves are obtained hL =
(7)
by means of a rigorous modeling method, such as FEM. h2 >>
On the basis of a numerical solution of transcendental frequency hL > 1:2 LR >
>
;
hR
equation, Adhikari and Bhattacharya (2011, 2012) proposed an
exact approach where only lateral and rotational stiffnesses have Although Eq. (3) is mathematically attractive as it contains three
been included. Furthermore, in order to improve the first natural simple factors, finding its constituting parameters is not an easy
336 D. Amar Bouzid et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 333e346
Fig. 2. The OWT model used: (a) Principal components and (b) Model considering soil stiffness through monopile head springs.
task. This equation is very important in the sense that the two first As most towers are tapered and tubular, the value of the bending
parameters account for the interaction between the soil and the stiffness is used to evaluate the fixed base frequency and conse-
monopile through the spring stiffnesses. Moreover, they incorpo- quently the natural frequency is difficult to obtain, although the
rate terms related to the equivalent tower stiffness which should be variation law of EIT with the increasing tower cross-section is easy
evaluated properly. to establish. In this context, Bhattacharya (2011) studied a tower as
The OWTs, especially those installed in deep waters, differ from a tapered cantilever beam subjected to a concentrated force p
onshore wind turbines. This difference comes from the fact that applied at its free end (Fig. 3a). Then, by means of beam theory, he
these OWTs are considered as slender and heavy structures which computed a parameter fp(m) (termed here as ‘tower stiffness co-
require in general three elements in their construction to bear the efficient’) as the ratio of the top displacement of a tower having a
heavy masses. These include the tower, the monopile overhang and constant cross-section uconst
t
sec to that of a tower having a linearly
tapered
the transition piece which assembles the first two elements varying cross-section ut . This parameter has been determined
(Fig. 2a). as
In Fig. 3d, the length of the tower LT accounts for the distance
from the rotor nacelle assembly to the top of the transition piece. 1 2m2 ðm 1Þ3
fp ðmÞ ¼ (8)
The tower has a varying bending stiffness EIT, a thickness tT and top 3 2m ln m 3m2 þ 4m 1
2
Fig. 3. OWT model used to evaluate the tower mass and bending stiffness: (a) Tower subjected to p; (b) Tower subjected to downward tapered load; (c) Tower different masses; and
(d) Geometrical properties of the tower. ms is the mass of the substructure (transition piece þ monopile) and Dp is the monopile diameter.
11 12m2 ðm 1Þ5
fqtriang ðmÞ ¼ (10)
120 18m3 þ 6m2 ln m þ 5m4 þ 11m3 27m2 þ 13m 2
Fig. 4 illustrates the evolution of fp(m) and fqtriang(m) with the The bending stiffness EIT of the tower may be evaluated as
increasing values of m. It is clearly seen that for the interval where
the ratio m varies from 1 to 2.5, both curves yield the same values.
This corresponds to the majority of practical applications. Outside EIT ¼ EIt faverage ðmÞ (11)
this range, a neat discrepancy is observed and we suggest using the
where
average value if it occurs to find a ratio m greater than 2.5.
h i.
faverage ðmÞ ¼ fp ðmÞ þ fqtriang ðmÞ 2 (12)
where
a ¼ LT =L; L ¼ Ls þ LT (14)
Eqs. (1) and (2) for an onshore or offshore wind turbine, where
the tower is resting directly on the soil, should be altered to
properly find a fixed base natural frequency for an OWT having
different masses and different bending stiffnesses, as shown in
Fig. 3c. If we adopt Eq. (2), this would have the following form for an
Fig. 4. Evolution of tower stiffness coefficient with tower diameters ratio. OWT composed of both tower and substructure parts:
338 D. Amar Bouzid et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 333e346
9
KL ðLT þ Ls Þ3 >
>
>
hL ¼ >
> uL IL ILR H
EITs >
> ¼ (20)
>
> qR IRL IR M
K ðL þ Ls Þ =
hR ¼ R T (19)
EITs >
> where H and M are the shear force and overturning moment
>
>
2>
> applied at the monopile head, respectively; uL and qR are the lateral
KLR ðLT þ Ls Þ >
>
>
hLR ¼ ; displacement and rotation of the monopile head, respectively; and
EITs
IL, IR, and ILR are the lateral, rotational and cross-coupling flexibility
The soil-foundation interaction coefficients given by Eqs. (4) and coefficients, respectively.
(5) are evaluated on the basis of Eq. (19). As the aim is to find the stiffness coefficients, it is easy to reverse
the matrix in Eq. (20) to obtain:
pc
9
3. Numerical methodology: the computer program bi ¼ Lpc Nai > =
pr
NAMPULAL bi ¼ Lpr Nai1 (25)
>
;
bfli ¼ Lfl Naiþ1
A pseudo 3D FEM model has been performed to study soil-
structure interaction problems in nonlinear media. This where
Fig. 5. Monopile head load-movement curves permitting to obtain (a) spring lateral stiffness, (b) spring rocking stiffness, and (c) spring coupling stiffness.
340 D. Amar Bouzid et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 333e346
Fig. 6. (a) Real-world soil-structure interaction problem, and (b) The vertical slices model showing the interacting slices subjected to external and body forces.
Substituting Eqs. (24) and (25) into Eq. (23) gives a more detailed Table 4
governing equation: Soil stiffness parameters in terms of soil friction angle and confining pressure.
Z Z Equation Source
0:51
BT DB þ N T Lpc N ai dv ¼ N T Lpr N ai1 dv
Es ¼ 1025e2:93Dr 1þ2k0
3
sv0 Otsmane and Amar Bouzid (2018)
v v
Z k0 ¼ 1 sinf Jâky (1944)
þ N T Lfl N aiþ1 dv þ pi (29)
v Note: Es is the modulus of elasticity of sand, k0 is the earth pressure coefficient at
rest, Dr is the relative density and sv0 is the overburden pressure.
In a more compact form, Eq. (29) becomes
pr Table 5
S i ai ¼ H i þ H fli þ pi (30)
Parameters governing the hyperbolic model according to correlations and
recommendations.
This equation cannot be solved straight-fully, since the right
hand terms are not available explicitly at the same time. Conse- Equation Source
quently, an updating iterative process is needed: n ¼ 0.51 Otsmane and Amar Bouzid (2018)
solid circular or tubular cross-sectional monopiles are easily dealt the same cross-sectional area as the effective circular cross-
with by prescribing the effective bending stiffness. Hence, an sectional monopile.
equivalent Young’s modulus is adopted according to the following The performances of this computer code have been assessed
formula: against analysis of the behavior of a number of OWT monopiles
where other commercial packages are used, such as FLAC3D,
192 EIact ABAQUSÒ and PLAXIS (Otsmane and Amar Bouzid, 2018). The re-
Epeq ¼ (37) sults were in excellent agreement with those of the aforemen-
p2 Dp 4
tioned powerful numerical tools. This computer code is employed
This equation has been set on the assumption that the square to determine the monopile head stiffnesses for the OWTs examined
cross-sectional monopile under consideration in NAMPULAL has in this paper.
Table 6
List of the five OWTs with soil conditions at the sites.
No. Wind farm name Country Soil conditions at the site Sources providing data and measured natural frequencies
1 Lely A2 offshore wind farm UK Soft clay in the uppermost layer to Zaaijer (2002), Arany et al. (2016), Amar Bouzid (2016)
dense and very dense sand layers below
2 Irene Vorrink offshore wind farm Netherlands Soft layers of silt and clay in the upper Zaaijer (2002), Arany et al. (2016), Amar Bouzid (2016)
seabed to dense sand and very dense sand below
3 Kentish Flats offshore wind farm UK Layers of dense sand and firm clay Arany et al. (2016), Amar Bouzid (2016)
4 Walney 1 offshore wind farm UK Medium and dense sand layers Abed et al. (2016)
5 North Hoyle wind farm UK Sand and clay layers Leblanc (2009), Arany et al. (2016)
Table 7
Input parameters for the five OWTs chosen for this study.
OWT component dimension Symbol (unit) Lely A2 Irene Vorrink Kentish Flats Walney 1 North Hoyle
Table 8
Masses and bending stiffnesses of the OWTs constitutive elements.
Wind farm name Tower mass, mT (t) Substructure mass, ms (t) Support structure mass, mTs (t) Structure bending Monopile bending stiffness, EIp (GN m2)
stiffness, EITs (GN m2)
Table 9
Adopted soil deformation and strength parameters as well as hyperbolic model parameters for the OWTs chosen.
Table 10
Flexibility coefficients IL, ILR and IR and their corresponding stiffness coefficients KL, KLR and KR relevant to monopiles in the OWTs chosen.
Wind farm IL (m/GN) IR (rad/(GN m)) ILR (GN1) KL (GN/m) KR (GN m/rad) KLR (GN)
name
et al.
Fig. 10. Values of KL, KLR and KR given by NAMPULAL against those developed by Arany et al. (2016).
D. Amar Bouzid et al. / Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering 10 (2018) 333e346 345
Abed Y, Amar Bouzid Dj, Bhattacharya S, Aissa MH. Static impedance functions for
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1980.
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natural frequency of an offshore wind turbine. Ocean Engineering 2015;101: National Polytechnic School (NPS) of Algiers in 1997 and
1e11. his PhD from both NPS and the University of Stuttgart
Randolph MF. The response of flexible piles to lateral loading. Géotechnique (Germany) in 2007. In 2008, he worked as a post-doctor
1981;31(2):247e59. researcher at the University of Stuttgart on the material
Reese L, Cox WR, Koop FD. Analysis of laterally loaded piles in sand. In: Proceedings point method (MPM) project where he implemented inter-
of the offshore technology conference, Houston, USA; 1974. https://doi.org/ face elements in MPM code. He is currently a full professor
10.4043/2080-MS. at the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Blida
Vught JH. Considerations on the dynamics of support structures for an offshore (Algeria) after spending 15 years at the University of
wind energy converter. PhD Thesis. Delft, the Netherlands: Delft University of Medea. He has been involved in geotechnical research,
Technology; 2000. consulting and education for more than 20 years. His
Wong KS, Duncan JM. Hyperbolic stress-strain parameters for non-linear finite research interests include (1) numerical investigation of
element analyses of stresses and movements in soil masses. Report No. TE-74e laterally loaded monopiles in both sand and clay, (2) devel-
3. Berkeley, USA: University of California; 1974. opment of new p-y curves for large-diameter monopiles
Yi JH, Kim SB, Yoon GL, Andersen LV. Natural frequency of bottom-fixed offshore supporting offshore wind turbines, (3) numerical analysis of box culverts, (4) develop-
wind turbines considering pile-soil-interaction with material uncertainties and ment of numerical tools for stability of slopes reinforced by piles, and (5) dynamic
scouring depth. Wind and Structures 2015;21(6):625e39. analysis of offshore wind turbines supported by skirted caissons.