Small-Scale Testing of Laterally Loaded Bucket Foundations in Dense Sand

Monopod bucket foundations promise to become a reliable and cost-effective concept for offshore wind turbine. Physical models are essential to understand the behavior of soil-structure systems. When conducting small-scale experiments on soil, scale effects can considerably affect the tests outcome. In a bid for overcoming this issue, a novel testing system based on the application of suction between the soil surface and a membrane is employed. The comparison between the tests conducted at stress levels of 0 kPa, and the tests with increased stress level, shows remarkable differences. In particular, the moment rotation curve of tests with pressure applied show more similar trend to large-scale tests. Further cyclic loading studies may be carried out adopting this testing system to investigate the accumulated rotation of bucket and monopile foundations.