Case study

Geotechnical investigation enables optimised offshore wind farm foundation design at Le Tréport

Le Tréport, France

Employees performing geotechnical testing in the advanced laboratory in Wallingford

Client

Eoliennes en Mer Dieppe Le Tréport (EMDT)

Project duration

July 2018 - July 2019

Our large geotechnical investigation led to Eoliennes en Mer Dieppe Le Tréport (EMDT) developing an optimised foundation design for a wind farm project at Le Tréport. This will allow EMDT to address challenging ground conditions at an early stage of the design, mitigating future risk to the structures.

Life cycle

Planning, feasibility, conceptual design

Design

Construction

Operations and maintenance

Decommissioning

Show full process

Our large geotechnical investigation led to Eoliennes en Mer Dieppe Le Tréport (EMDT) developing an optimised foundation design for a wind farm project at Le Tréport. This will allow EMDT to address challenging ground conditions at an early stage of the design, mitigating future risk to the structures.

EMDT plans to develop a 62-turbine offshore wind farm off the French coast between Le Tréport and Dieppe. To obtain an optimised foundation design for the wind farm, EMDT commissioned Fugro to deliver a full offshore geotechnical investigation on the proposed site in the English Channel.

We started work in 2018 and completed the geotechnical investigations in under four months. We drilled 63 geotechnical boreholes at the turbine locations, offshore voltage station and along the cable routes, to a maximum depth of 80 metres below the seafloor, to capture the full complexity of the site.

To ensure the project was completed within the required time frame, three vessels and a jack-up barge were deployed in stages, using dynamic location planning between vessels to maximise operational efficiencies.

All geotechnical requirements of the project were met in full, with excellent sample and core recoveries obtained in very difficult ground conditions. We used an automated logging system to guarantee retrieval of the best quality data as we cored through different chalk and rock profiles.

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Geotechnical drilling vessel Fugro Scout

Fugro Scout geotechnical vessel

The offshore campaign was followed by a large in-house laboratory programme that included advanced static and dynamic testing to determine soil strength and stiffness parameters, enabling us to characterise the ground conditions.

During our campaign, we recorded nearly 102,000 field exposure hours and carried out an extensive offshore programme.

Key metrics

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drilled metres

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cored metres

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geophysical logging metres

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downhole cone penetration testing (CPT) metres

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seabed CPT metres

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in situ thermal conductivity tests

Expertise image for Fugro.com

Foundation design

OWF foundations

Foundation design

From a desktop study to data acquisition or foundation scope, our foundation design solutions deliver reliable and efficient foundation designs and reduce installation risks for your project.

Our comprehensive project management, coupled with clear lines of communication with EMDT, resulted in completion of this extensive project safely and on time.

On behalf of EMDT, I would like to congratulate all of Fugro’s offshore team, supported also by onshore teams, for the completion of this project, which was quite challenging. They managed to master the chalk, overcome some technical challenges and, above all, do it in a safe manner.

Benoit Caillet

Soil Assessment Manager, EMDT

Site investigation (CPT and drilling) and monitoring
Performing CPT, drilling and monitoring of the Grimburgwal canal in Amsterdam

What we do at Fugro

Helping you save time with Geo-data

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