Numerical and Experimental Modeling of Scour at Foundation Structures for Offshore Wind Turbines

Regarding offshore foundation structures, there is presently a lack of knowledge of scour progression for complex structures like Tripod or Gravity Base foundations for offshore wind turbines. Typically, scour is investigated in physical model tests. As an extension, parts of the investigations could be carried out using numerical methods, which however requires that all relevant processes leading to scour are captured well by the model. The general possibility for conducting such numerical simulations is presented here, given by the examples of flow, shear stress and scour calculations for Tripod and Gravity Base foundations and a circular cylinder. The numerical investigations were carried out within the framework of OpenFOAM software code, which was extended by an appropriate scour model.