Calibration of failure criteria for bucket foundations on drained sand under general loading

As a new concept with respect to offshore wind turbines, the bucket foundation is known from the oil and gas industry; though the load conditions here are significantly different. An extensive number of loading tests with small-scale bucket foundations subjected to combined loading were carried out in the geotechnical laboratory at Aalborg University. Tests were performed on buckets with various sizes, embedment ratios, and load paths on saturated dense Aalborg University Sand No. 1. The experimental results were used to evaluate the behavior of the bucket foundations in accordance with the macro model approach. An expression to describe the combined capacity of bucket foundations was developed by calibrating the failure criteria for bucket foundations.