Full-scale test study of Bearing Behaviour of Large Diameter Super-long Steel Pipe Piles in Offshore Wind Farm

Steel pipe piles have been widely used in offshore wind farms, offshore platforms, and other offshore engineering. Due to difficulties of the offshore field test, the full-scale field test data of the large diameter super-long steel pipe pile are still very limited. Based on the East China Sea Bridge Wind Farm project, the axial and lateral bearing capacity test were carried out on four super-long steel pipe piles, two of which are vertical piles and two are inclined piles. Through the test and analysing, the axial and lateral ultimate bearing capacity of the piles was determined, and the axial ultimate bearing capacity of inclined piles was significantly smaller than that of vertical piles. Furthermore, based on the test results and the measured strain data, the equivalent conversion results, the distributions of axial force and shaft resistance, the relationship between the shaft resistance and relative displacement of pile-soil interface, the pile shaft deflection, and the p-y curves in different soil layers were also discussed. Finally, the conclusions are presented, and it can provide a reference for designing the super-long steel pipe piles in offshore engineering.