Numerical investigations of soil plugging effect inside large-diameter, open-ended wind turbine monopiles driven by vibratory hammers

This study established a Couple Eulerian-Lagrange model to simulate monopile vibratory penetration for the investigation of soil plugging effect during high-frequency penetration of monopiles for wind turbine. Simulation analysis is focused particularly on soil plugging effect of a large diameter monopile during vibratory penetration into sand, clay, or layered soil. The results of the numerical simulation show that soil plugging effect is unlikely to occur during monopile penetration into the clay soil, while partial soil plugging may occur during the sand penetration. Penetration resistance at the pile toe is transferred to the radial stress around the pile wall. At a critical point penetration process, internal shaft friction becomes larger than external shaft friction. Moreover, radial pressure factors increase during partial soil plugging effect. For layered soil, the topsoil not only has great influence on the soil plugging effect, but also affects shaft friction in the subsoil during monopile penetration.