Mooring Anchors for Marine Renewable Energy Foundations

With the increasing use of offshore wind turbines, it has become necessary to explore deep-water sites for locating wind farms. Floating turbines are an ideal choice for these locations. Such turbines are anchored with mooring chains to the sea floor using suction anchors, driven piles or gravity foundations. This paper presents design methods for these types of foundations. Moored gravity foundations have been used for the much larger floating oil and gas installations. These concrete foundations resist the applied wind and wave loads through the dead weight of the concrete base combined with a short skirt along the periphery. A competent bearing stratum at seabed level is necessary to facilitate a gravity base.