Offshore Foundation nach dem Verfahren ELiSE

Offshore foundation with the method ELiSE

The development of cost-effective structures for new offshore foundations is an important factor to advance the "Energiewende". Within the BIONA-project "Offshore Foundation with the method ELiSE", it is shown how the structure of a foundation of an offshore wind energy plant was developed and optimized in weight by using the method "Evolutionary Light Structure Engineering" (ELiSE). The companies WeserWind GmbH, RLE International GmbH and the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research came together to design a new lightweight structure using their existing expertise in the areas of structural lightweight design, production planning and finite element simulations. The new development in the field of lightweight design is based on the stable and yet light shells of planktonic organisms which served as archetype for the technical design process.
The project had two main goals: the development of a foundation for a 5-MW wind energy plant for the offshore application in deeper waters by using principles from nature was the technical objective of the project. The design of the foundation had to be characterized by efficient material usage, good manufacturability and economic aspects. In addition, the load capacity of the structure had to stay at least at the same level of traditional design solutions.
The scientific objective was the usage of the bionic lightweight method ELiSE to investigate a new way of developing radically improved lightweight constructions.
By applying ELiSE, lightweight principles were successfully identified in the biological archetypes and transferred to a technical solution. As a result, a new offshore foundation was designed which can be characterized by both lightweight and cost-effectiveness. In this article, the necessary steps of the development of this bionic offshore foundation are exemplarily demonstrated.