Recovery-based error estimation in the dynamic analysis of offshore wind turbine monopile foundations

Offshore wind turbine foundations are affected by cyclic loads due to oscillatory kinematic loads, such as those from wind, waves, and earthquakes. Monopiles are often used as a foundation concept for offshore windmill turbines. In this study, coupled dynamic equations with the u - P formulation for low-frequency load are considered for an offshore wind turbine monopile foundation, to present the response in terms of pore water pressure (PWP), stress and strain distribution in an elastic porous medium at regions around the monopile foundation. Different stress recovery techniques based on the Zienkeiwicz-Zhu (ZZ) error estimator namely, super-convergent patch recovery (SPR), weighted super-convergent patch recovery (WSPR), and L-2-projection techniques are also investigated to recover the stresses at nodal points in the finite element method. To estimate errors in the time domain when performing transient simulations, three recovery processes are used with different meshes. The convergence of the dynamic problem is also studied. The results are verified with findings in the literature, revealing that the time period of effective stresses follows the applied load frequency. In conclusion, the history of the shear stress can have an important effect on the shear stress distribution, making it asymmetric in the time domain. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.