Fatigue design of offshore steel mono-pile wind substructures

Offshore wind turbine support structures experience tens of millions of load cycles throughout their design lives, such that these structures are prone to high-cycle fatigue damage. This paper focuses on steel mono-pile substructures, by far the most common type of offshore wind installation, and examines the origin of current fatigue design guidance and what needs to be done to develop guidelines in order to support designers and operators to better optimise offshore wind support structures. The paper discusses some of the incrementally developed techniques for fatigue design from the oil and gas sector and questions whether or not these are entirely appropriate for the rapidly developing offshore wind industry.