Bremen based Maritime Offshore Group GmbH, the steel construction company Conferdo GmbH & Co. KG, the Technical University of Middle Hesse and the Franzius-Institute for Hydraulic and Coastal Engineering at the Hanover University began a development project for a new offshore foundation.
The design is based on the HEXABASE foundation of the Maritime Offshore Group and ThyssenKrupp Mannex and is planned as a gravity foundation, which will be simple to transport and will stand securely on the seafloor with an 8 MW wind turbine on top, MOF explained.
The major components of the existing HEXABASE will be combined with a new supporting feet arrangements, which also will be equipped with ballast tanks containing several thousand tons of sand.
The ballast tanks walls will be made of a resistible textile layer that will separate and held back the sand from the filled in mixture from the water. The foundation will rest on six plate-shaped elements, made of resistible fabric covered frames. This feature will enable the adaption to very different soil conditions without any environmental harmful preparation of the seafloor, MOF added.
The Technical University of Middle Hesse is responsible for the structural design. The Maritime Offshore Group will design the ballast tanks and the supporting feet elements. The steel constructor Conferdo will plan the production process and after-sales support. The Franzius-Institute will analyse the effects of the foundation on the seafloor like scouring in theoretical studies and tank tests in Hanover.
The project will be finished in mid of 2017. The new product will be offered and manufactured by the ThyssenKrupp Mannex GmbH.
The TEXBASE-project is sponsored by the Central innovation program (ZIM) of the German Federal Ministry for the Economy.