Undrained capacity of circular shallow foundations under combined VHMT loading

TY - JOUR

T1 - Undrained capacity of circular shallow foundations under combined VHMT loading

AU - He, Pengpeng

AU - Newson, Tim

N1 - Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [Grant No.: RGPIN-2015-06062]. Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2022. CC BY

PY - 2022/10

Y1 - 2022/10

N2 - Wind turbine (WT) foundations are generally subjected to large combined vertical, horizontal, moment, and torsional (VHMT) loads. The available investigations of the ultimate limit states of WT foundations focus predominately on unlimited-tension soil-foundation interfaces that are more appropriate for offshore settings. However, the interfaces for onshore WT foundations are generally unable to resist tensile loads. To address this omission, a zero-tension interface is used to investigate the VHMT failure envelope of circular shallow foundations under undrained soil conditions using finite element analysis. The effects of soil strength heterogeneity and foundation embedment were investigated. The results show that torsional loads reduce the VHM bearing capacity of circular foundations. The foundation embedment is also found to significantly increase the foundation bearing capacity. A full 4-D analytical expression for the VHMT failure envelope has been proposed based on the calculated failure envelopes.

AB - Wind turbine (WT) foundations are generally subjected to large combined vertical, horizontal, moment, and torsional (VHMT) loads. The available investigations of the ultimate limit states of WT foundations focus predominately on unlimited-tension soil-foundation interfaces that are more appropriate for offshore settings. However, the interfaces for onshore WT foundations are generally unable to resist tensile loads. To address this omission, a zero-tension interface is used to investigate the VHMT failure envelope of circular shallow foundations under undrained soil conditions using finite element analysis. The effects of soil strength heterogeneity and foundation embedment were investigated. The results show that torsional loads reduce the VHM bearing capacity of circular foundations. The foundation embedment is also found to significantly increase the foundation bearing capacity. A full 4-D analytical expression for the VHMT failure envelope has been proposed based on the calculated failure envelopes.

KW - circular foundation

KW - failure envelope

KW - finite element analysis

KW - Wind turbine

KW - zero-tension interface

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85126091614

U2 - 10.1177/0309524X221083024

DO - 10.1177/0309524X221083024

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85126091614

SN - 0309-524X

VL - 46

SP - 1452

EP - 1470

JO - Wind Engineering

JF - Wind Engineering

IS - 5

ER -