New partners DEME and JERA (from Japan) have joined Bluewater Energy Services’ industry partnership, which aims to lower the cost and carbon footprint of offshore renewable foundations.
The goal of the partnership is to carry out a series of tensile tests on several fully instrumented open steel tube anchor heaps that are fitted with fiber optic sensors over the entire pile length using static and cyclic stresses. Along with current collaborators Shell, TotalEnergies, Lloyd’s Register, Deltares, SOFEC, SBM Offshore, and Bluewater, further tests can now be conducted.
The Port of Rotterdam erected the foundation piles at the Maasvlakte in September of last year. To conduct these experiments, the Port of Rotterdam has made their facility available. Subcontractors DEME Infra, APTS, Buildwise, Witteveen+Bos, and Fugro carry out the tests.
In order to better understand the impact of cyclic degradation occurring on the soil-pile interface vs depth, partners are working together to gather a set of factual data for the design of offshore renewable foundations. The outcomes will be utilized to increase offshore engineering’s dependability and will help lower the cost and carbon footprint of offshore renewable foundations.
Image source: Bluewater
