Quantification of measurement and model effects in monopile foundation scour protection experiments

Abstract

The present work introduces an analysis of the measurement and model effects that exist in monopile scour protection experiments with repeated small scale tests. The damage erosion is calculated using the three dimensional global damage number S3D and subarea damage number S3D,i . Results show that the standard deviation of the global damage number σ(S3D ) = 0.257 and is approximately 20% of the mean S3D, and the standard deviation of the subarea damage number σ(S3D,i ) = 0.42 which can be up to 33% of the mean S3D . The irreproducible maximum wave height, chaotic flow field and non-repeatable armour layer construction are regarded as the main reasons for the occurrence of strong model effects. The measurement effects are limited to σ(S3D ) = 0.039 and σ(S3D,i ) = 0.083, which are minor compared to the model effects.