As the global transition to renewable energy accelerates, ensuring the reliability of foundations in offshore structures is increasingly important. In the context of floating wind structures, pile foundations can be used as anchor points for station keeping against significant cy
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As the global transition to renewable energy accelerates, ensuring the reliability of foundations in offshore structures is increasingly important. In the context of floating wind structures, pile foundations can be used as anchor points for station keeping against significant cyclic loading. Tubular piles have proven reliable while offering a high tensile load capacity, but accurate predictions of pile tensile capacity and stability without extensive testing are essential to avoid overconservative design. This paper presents findings from the Tubular Pile Pull-out Testing (TPPT) Joint Industry Project, which involved field testing on tubular steel piles under monotonic and multi-stage cyclic loading at the Port of Rotterdam. This paper primarily discusses the comparison between predicted and measured pile capacity and stability under cyclic loading. The predictions were based on interaction charts recommended in the literature for piles under tensile loading. Pile responses in interaction charts are classified as stable, metastable, or unstable based on their displacement responses to the applied cyclic loading in relation to the static capacity. The results observed in the field tests are compared with the stability response previously defined in the literature. In particular, the TPPT testing programme included tests near the chart zone where stable and metastable curves converge towards the unstable zone, where the proximity between curves leads to uncertainties in determining pile stability.
