Insight into the post-liquefaction behaviour of skirted foundations

With rapid growth of energy production from offshore wind farms, the construction of wind turbines has developed very fast around the world. An important phenomenon in seismic areas is liquefaction in saturated sandy soils that can be resulted in a wide range of structural damages from excessive settlement of foundations to general failure. New generation wind farms are planned to be built at regions that may be vulnerable to the seismic hazard. In this study, a series of experimental studies was conducted to study the behavior of bucket foundations and surface footings in response to the upward seepage-induced liquefaction. The experimental results show degradation of bearing capacity of bucket foundation and surface footing as result of excess pore water pressure development in sand. The inclusion of skirts can confine the soil around foundation and consequently reduce the settlement of bucket foundation more than that of the surface footing. Moreover, it was observed that the bearing capacity of foundation in liquefiable soils would be enhanced with increasing of skirt length and foundation width.