Design of offshore wind power foundation with multi-bucket

Three- and four-bucket offshore wind power foundations with a new form of force-transferring structure are proposed in this paper, and the integrated finite element model of foundation-soil-transition structure is established by using ABAQUS. The carrying capacity of the proposed foundations is studied under vertical load, horizontal load and bending moment. It can be seen that the vertical bearing capacity of multi-bucket foundation can be roughly estimated by the vertical bearing capacity of single-bucket; the horizontal bearing capacity of the three-bucket foundation scheme is controlled by displacement, while that of the four-bucket foundation scheme is controlled by the internal forces of soils. Moreover, the carrying capacity is provided by the overall structure formed by multi-bucket before soil failure. Compared with the conventional single-bucket foundation, there are mainly tension and pressure that are applied to the multi-bucket foundation, so that the carrying capacity of the foundation can be fully utilized. The probability of soil failure can be well reduced with the proposed multi-bucket foundation, and the stress transmission of force-transferring structure is more consistent through steel beams with variable cross-section.