BEHAVIOR OF PILED RAFT FOUNDATION FOR WIND TURBINE
Wind farm, piled raft, foundation load capacity, load transfer, stiffness, soil-structure interaction, load distribution.
The evolution in the power wind turbines in recente years, with the inherent increase in blade diameter, has led to a significant increase in the height of the towers, which are currently over 120m. As a consequence, is required a performance foundations compatible with increasing vertical and horizontal efforts as well as the bending moments. It is observed that the foundations projects that demand large blocks associated with piles, sometimes used as solutions wind tourbine foundations, are mostly oversized because they do not consider the contribution of the block as an element of transmission of load to the ground foundation. That is, it is considered that the block has the only function of transmitting the loading of the wind turbine to the piles, and the project is conceived as a solution in group of piles. This research will use a numerical modeling software specifically for geotechnics, in this case the Plaxis® 3D Foundation v1.1. The objective of this work is to analyze the load distribution between piles and raft, as well as the differential settlements in the piled raft system foundation while are done simulations varying the number and positioning of the piles below raft.