Digging deeper into foundation performance
Foundation failures are rare but catastrophic – how can we do better?
Employing tried and true root cause analysis methods can provide a deeper understanding of foundation performance, and help direct mitigation before a foundation fails.
Failures in renewable energy foundation systems are rare but can often be catastrophic when they do occur. When a crack or other visible change to a foundation appears, a common approach is to address the superficial issue with a patch or another action that only addresses the symptoms. Although this approach can solve the immediate problem, a holistic option is to look beyond the visible expression of a defect to understand how the structure is interacting with the asset. This allows for appropriate measures to be taken to ensure the structure provides reliable support for continued operation.
Even in the absence of a potential failure, performance of a foundation and structural system can have a direct impact on energy production, and improvements in foundation performance can be gained with increased maintenance efforts as well as stiffening and reinforcing the foundation. Often relatively modest changes to maintenance procedures and minor structural retrofits to supporting structures can result in better reliability and better overall energy production.
To ensure a deeper understanding of concerns or issues with your foundations and structures, Root Cause Analysis (RCA) methods can be critical tools to provide these necessary insights. Different approaches to RCA include bowties, fault trees, BSCAT™, and others. These have been traditionally used to evaluate mechanical and electrical performance issues and are powerful tools to help understand the same aspects for foundations and structures.
The Structural, Geotechnical and Civil Engineers in DNV's Civil Engineering section have the experience and tools developed over decades in the renewable energy industry and can recommend actions to fully understand and optimize performance of your foundations and structures.
Apostolos Athanasiou, Ph.D. and Hieu Nguyen Ph.D., P.E. will be presenting at the ACP OMS Conference on March 2, 2023 with a specific focus on applying Root Cause Analysis methods to foundation performance. Please join us at the conference to discuss any questions that you may have.
2/28/2023 3:00:00 PM