For conventional jacket oil platforms or transformer platforms for offshore wind farms, pile groups are often used at each corner to support the platform. A pile group typically consists of 2-4 piles connected by a top cap. The pile group provides required foundation capacity and redundancy to the structure. Capacity and pile-soil interaction models are typically developed for single piles, and significant advancements are seen in recent years. However, the pile group effect is much less studied and there is little guidance in the design standards. In this paper, a brief literature review on pile group effects is summarized. A numerical case study on the impact of pile spacing and group loading angle is performed. The p-y responses of a 2-pile pile group and a single pile are compared. The p and y-multiplier of p-y curves from the numerical case study are presented and findings and limitations are discussed.
Y. N. Teng, Y. H. Zhang and Y. Q. Lai
Keywords: pile group, soft clay, p-multiplier, y-multiplier, numerical modeling
Publisher: DFI