Chapter 9: Cyclic triaxial tests to aid offshore pile analysis and design

Renewable offshore energy structures are likely to experience millions of load cycles, with variable magnitudes, frequencies and load components during their service lives. One way of assessing the potential (positive or negative) effects of such load cycling on their foundations is to conduct scaled model or full-scale tests. It is also highly valuable to develop analytical treatments that recognise and address the key soil response properties to help interpret and then apply the outcomes of either model studies or full-scale monitoring. In the same way, knowledge of how soils respond to cycling is vital to the calibration of constitutive models applied in any purely theoretical treatment.