Experimental Study of Muddy Soil Inside Suction Bucket Foundation by Vacuum Electro-Osmosis

Abstract

The composite bucket foundation of offshore wind power is a new type of foundation, which has been applied in practical engineering because of its advantages of large-scale prefabrication on land, integrated installation at sea and zero residual recovery. In order to overcome the shaft friction and tip resistance of the suction bucket, great passive suction is often applied during the penetration of the suction bucket. However, the large hydraulic gradient usually leads to seepage failure of the soil on beneath the top plate of the bucket foundation. As a result, the bearing capacity of the top plate of the bucket is often ignored. In this paper, the construction and construction process of composite bucket foundation are introduced, and series of model tests were carried out to reinforce the soil inside of the bucket foundation by the method of the vacuum electro-osmosis. The results show that the combined method of negative pressure and electro-osmosis can effectively improve the undrained shear strength of the soil and reduce the water content of the soil in the bucket foundation. Finally, the reinforcement effect of soil inside bucket foundation is analyzed according to reinforcement of the prototype construction.