Prob-RunUp project to advance probabilistic assessment of wave run-up loads
Creating building blocks for future site-specific probabilistic assessments
Prob-RunUp stands for Probabilistic Modelling of Wave Run-Up Loads on Offshore Monopile Platforms. A project aimed at improving the prediction of extreme wave impacts on offshore wind monopile platforms.
As monopile foundations continue to become bigger and bigger, understanding and predicting wave run-up loads on access platforms and secondary steel structures remains an important design challenge for offshore wind. Current engineering approaches often rely on conservative assumptions to account for wave run-up behaviour, leading to heavier structures, higher material use and increased project costs.
The Prob-RunUp project will develop and validate a probabilistic framework that links environmental conditions, such as significant wave height, peak period and steepness, to the likelihood of extreme run-up loads. Rather than creating a complete design tool, the project will deliver practical building blocks that enable engineers to develop site-specific probabilistic assessments in the future.
Using experimental data from the ongoing Run-Up project, the team develop and test probabilistic relationships for extreme run-up events, characterising their variability and identifying the factors that most strongly influence run-up loads. The results are expected to support safer, more efficient and cost-effective offshore wind designs, while reducing unnecessary conservatism in current design practices.
By advancing the understanding of wave run-up loads, Prob-RunUp contributes to the development of robust and scalable offshore wind infrastructure for increasingly challenging North Sea conditions.
The project is being carried out by Deltares, Van Oord and Vattenfall, bringing together expertise in modelling, offshore engineering, metocean conditions and structural design.
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