Ice loads on offshore wind turbine foundations

Ice loading on wind turbine foundations is a design load in the inner Danish seas and straits. Relatively conservative design requirements/guidelines have so far been used for prediction of ice loads. The aim of the present project is to improve knowledge of ice loads on wind turbine foundations and to identify improved prediction methods and possible ways of optimising foundation designs with respect to ice loads. Recent literature at the field has been studied, and international state of the art ice models and theories are described and tested in the project documents. Scaled model tests of conical and cylindrical foundations have been carried out in ice laboratory at NRC in Canada. The test stand and the tests are presented along with analysis of the data. To reduce ice loading on structures in the inner Danish seas and straits conical foundations are used. The conical top of the foundation will reduce the ice loads, but slightly increase the wave loads - the consequences of this have been investigated