The monopile has proven to be the preferred foundation solution for offshore wind turbines in shallow water and this is mainly due to its simplicity of design, fabrication and installation which leads to it being an economically sound foundation solution. The rounds 2 and 3 of the UK offshore wind farms are located at ever deeper water, some at the deepest waters wind turbines have ever been set to be installed. During the past 5 years several foundation solutions have been proposed for deepwater application and they mainly comprise of a number of foundation elements such as tripod system and the hybrid monopile-footing foundation system. The hybrid system, which comprises of a monopile and a bearing plate attached to the pile at mudline, has proven to significantly enhance the lateral capacity of the monopile. This paper reports the results of a series of centrifuge tests (to recreate prototype stress and load conditions) carried out to investigate the behavior of the hybrid system in Sand. Furthermore, the results of a series of 3D finite element analyses (using ICFEP) have been reported.
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