Soil-dynamic structural damping of offshore wind turbine plants. This paper presents a study of the natural vibration behavior of a dynamic model of an offshore wind turbine plant, highlighting aspects of numerical modeling of the nonlinear soil-structure interaction as well as soil dynamic damping. The applied model consists of a two-dimensional FE-model of a beam on elastic foundation. The formulation of the nonlinear spring elements is based on hypoplasticity. Thus, different stiffnesses during initial, un- and reloading as well as soil hardening and softening can be captured. Material damping is considered by calculating the change in void ratio. Parallel viscous dampers depict effects of geometric damping. The pile foundation model is extended to a complete model of an offshore wind turbine by modeling the natural sea state with linear wave theory for the North Sea. Due to the dynamic formulation of the nonlinear equation of motion, the model allows the time-dependent load-deformation behavior to be evaluated in a short computational time. Different load scenarios are considered and the natural vibration behavior is investigated with respect to soil-dynamic structural damping. Future research addresses the derivation of damping factors to be applied in offshore pile design.
