01Introduction

With the rapid development of offshore wind power in China, especially its expansion into deep-sea areas, the combination application of single pile dampers is demonstrating its revolutionary advantages. This article will provide you with a detailed introduction to the advantages, challenges, and application prospects of single pile dampers in the field of offshore wind power.

02 Advantages of Single Pile Dampers

1. Cost effectiveness: Compared to other offshore wind power foundations, single piles have lower installation and material costs under suitable water depth conditions.

2. Construction speed: The single pile construction process is simple and fast, significantly shortening the construction period.

3. Wide applicability: Suitable for various seabed geology, especially excellent performance in sandy or clayey substrates.

4. Low environmental impact: Less disturbance to the seabed and lower ecological impact.

5. Low operation and maintenance costs: Although regular inspections and maintenance are required, the maintenance cost of a single pile foundation is lower compared to other solutions.

03 Challenge of Single Pile Foundation

1. Water depth limitation: mainly applicable to shallow water areas, stability and economy face challenges when the water depth exceeds 30 meters.

2. Force limitations: In extreme weather conditions, there may be dynamic loads and vibration issues that require additional engineering measures to enhance stability.

3. Special geological adaptability: Special design and installation techniques may be required in rock substrates, increasing costs and complexity.

Solution for 04 Damper

Due to its low rigidity, single pile units are prone to generate significant resonance loads and tower top oscillations, resulting in reduced stability and load-bearing capacity. The introduction of dampers can effectively solve these problems, and single piles can be used at machine positions or water depths where single piles could not be erected before (the Shenquan project and Lianjiang project could only use pipe racks to meet the fatigue load of specific machine positions, but after the installation of dampers on the unit, single pile design can also meet the load requirements of machine positions), expanding the application scope of single piles. In addition, for machine positions that can already use single piles, the use of dampers can also reduce the weight of pile foundations and tower structures, achieving further cost reduction.

Tuned Mass Damper (TMD)

TMD is a device that reduces structural vibration and improves stability. It consists of mass inertia elements, stiffness elements, and damping elements, which counteract vibration through the inertia effect of mass blocks and passive control of dampers and stiffness tuning.

The benefits of 05 dampers in offshore wind power

The combination of single piles and dampers has been widely used in European wind farms, such as the AREVA North Sea wind farm. In China, with the development of offshore wind power towards the deep sea (water depth exceeding 20m), the application of dampers can effectively reduce the fatigue and ultimate load of single pile unit support structures by more than 10%, achieve weight reduction of support structures, and reduce costs.

Taking a 6MW single pile unit as an example (supporting a weight of over 2000 tons), it is possible to reduce the weight of the tower by more than 60 tons, and the weight of the single pile support structure (tower+single pile) by hundreds of tons. Considering the steel cost and processing cost of the support structure of 10000 yuan/ton, a single unit can achieve cost reduction benefits of over one million yuan. Considering the mass production cost of dampers of hundreds of thousands, taking into account the entire life cycle cost, it can save nearly ten million yuan in installation and operation costs per unit.

Batch Challenge of 06 Dampers

01. Commercialization: Wind power dampers should be developed into products with performance and price advantages.

02. Full life cycle effect: Compared with building dampers, wind power dampers need to function throughout their entire life cycle, placing higher demands on space and connecting components.

03. High reliability: The unmanned nature of offshore wind power requires dampers to have extremely high reliability, and maintenance free operation is a major challenge.

04. Accurate simulation calculation: The special nature of wind power requires dampers to play a key role in load calculation and pile foundation design, requiring continuous iterative optimization.

Conclusion

The combination application of single pile dampers provides a new solution for the development of offshore wind power. Despite facing challenges, its advantages in cost-effectiveness, construction speed, and environmental friendliness indicate that it will become the main configuration in China's deep-sea wind power field. With the continuous advancement and optimization of technology, single pile dampers have broad application prospects.