Numerical simulation study of scour around tripod foundation for offshore wind turbine under waves

CHEN Da; LIU Hongjun; ZHENG Tianyuan; HU Ruigeng

doi:10.13984/j.cnki.cn37-1141.2025.05.008

Abstract：In order to study the scouring characteristics around tripod foundation in Jiangsu coastal areas under the Stokes wave theory,and discuss the influence of wave heights,water depths and installation angles of tripod on foundation scour law,the Flow-3D numerical simulation software was used to estab-lish a seabed-tripod-wave interaction model.The simulation results showed that when the installation angle of tripod was 60 degrees,the scouring first occurred around the upstream conduit pile and under the truss close to the upstream conduit pile.A scour pit also appeared under the central column with time,,which gradually integrated with the local scour pits around the upstream conduit piles along the direction of the truss to form a V-shaped scour pit.At t=3600s,the maximum scouring depth around the entire structure appeared below the connection between the upstream conduit pile and the truss.When the installation angle of tripod was 0 degrees,the maximum scouring depth of the entire struc-ture appeared below the connection between the downstream conduit pile and the truss.When the in-stallation angle of tripod was 30 degrees,the maximum scouring depth appeared below the connection between the unilateral conduit pile and the truss,and at this time the maximum scouring depth was sig-nificantly greater than the other two cases.Under the action of Stokes waves,the maximum scouring depth of the seabed around the tripod foundation increaseed as wave height increased,and reduced as water depth increased,but the position of the maximum scouring depth remained unchanged.