Whyte believes that the best solution to overcome some of the issues associated with developing large windfarm sites is by building ‘fully informed’ three-dimensional (3D) ground models: “The development of 3D ground models as a site characterisation tool, hosted as digital GIS databases, combining a large amount of multi-disciplinary data (e.g. metocean, geological, geophysical, geotechnical) allow the project team live access to the latest datasets from a single, intuitive, web-hosted map-based system. The use of a holistic digital database to host and store all the geo-data associated with the site is pivotal to help mitigate potential geo-risks across large wind farm sites and develop the most optimised design solutions.” Whyte continued to explain that across a large windfarm site, there will be many different geotechnical constraints, some of which are not immediately obvious, such as: pile buckling risks, failure to install suction buckets, shallow (insufficient) pile penetration length, gravity-based foundations not being suitable due to local bathymetry, and dynamic seabed/scour conditions. Such geotechnical constraints can be identified and mitigated at an early stage with the use of a 3D ground model.
