Resisting moment behavior of large diameter and shallow buried bucket foundation for offshore wind turbine

The wind turbine belongs to high-rise structure. The foundation of wind turbine must bear huge moment, which is different from other common structure foundations. The large diameter and shallow buried bucket foundation is a new foundation type which meets the requirement of the characteristic load of offshore wind turbine. The important technological parameters of bucket foundation for resisting moment are diameter, embedded depth, upper wall and lateral thickness. An offshore wind power project is taken as an example, and the impacts of the characteristic parameters of different size on bucket foundation transferring and resisting moment load are systematically studied by numerical simulation. The failure mechanisms and rotating point position of bucket foundation are revealed under moment load. The rationality of equivalent homogeneous algorithm is studied in designing the bearing capacity of the foundation. Research shows that the bearing capacity of resisting moment increases significantly with the increase of diameter and embedded depth. Under the moment loads, arc failure surface occurs in the surrounding soils of bucket foundation, and the curved edge triangle stability region is found under the foundation soil. In practical engineering, the bearing capacity of resisting moment is obviously improved after the equivalent homogenization of the stratified foundation soil which contains the soft layer on top of the hard layer.