Gentle Driving of Piles
Maxim Segeren (TU Delft)
The installation of offshore monopiles has become more challenging with the increase of the diameters of the piles. The goal of this project is to make the pile installation process as efficient as possible by means of testing a novel pile vibrator exciting two different modes of motion of the monopiles. We call the proposed method “Gentle Pile Driving” (GPD) for its envisaged capability to reduce the driving loads and the emitted, harmful for the environment, installation noise. A large experimental campaign which takes place this summer at the Maasvlakte II, where scaled monopiles will be installed using various installation methods, including the GDP method. The GDP project is the first GROW project and is coordinated by Delft University of Technology (TU Delft). Our project partners are Deltares, TNO, Innogy, Shell, Eneco, Van Oord, Boskalis, Seaway Heavy Lifting, DOT, SIF, IHC and Cape Holland.