Abstract
Offshore wind farms are being constructed in challenging locations such as seismically liquefiable soils, scour-prone seabed deeper waters, carbonate soils and ground with the shallow seabed. Foundation design must be robust due to the enormous cost of retrofitting in a challenging environment. In the oil and gas industry, traditionally, engineers use conventional foundation systems, such as shallow gravity-based foundations, suction caissons, or slender piles or monopiles. However, for offshore wind turbines, new types of foundations are being considered for which neither prior experience nor guidelines exist. Engineers often use novel foundations to support wind turbine generator structures for which design guidelines or codes of practice do not exist. This paper provides a general framework for de-risking novel foundations based on the limit state criteria through technology readiness level framework. Examples are included to illustrate the applications.