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EU funding (€260,348): Unlocking Pile Anchors Capacity and Resilience for Floating Wind Energy Hor3 Mar 2026 EU Research and Innovation programme "Horizon"
Overview
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Unlocking Pile Anchors Capacity and Resilience for Floating Wind Energy
UPCareWind will develop a new framework for pile anchor design to unlock hidden pile resistance and resilience, and to support the acceleration of offshore Floating Wind Turbine (FWT) deployment. FWT is a key technology for harvesting clean energy over deep water, with thousands of turbines required to meet EU climate neutrality goals, as 70% of the offshore wind technical potential lies in water depths greater than 50 metres. Steel pile anchors are currently the most frequently used in the mooring systems that keep FWTs in place. Current design guidelines define pile resistance as the force measured at a pile head displacement equal to 10% of the diameter (D), based on conservative onshore design guidelines. However, since offshore mooring systems with >100 metre-long mooring lines can tolerate much larger displacements, much higher peak anchor resistance can be unlocked by allowing displacement of >100%D. As a result, smaller piles can be manufactured to provide equivalent design forces, saving billions in steel and installation vessel time. UPCareWind will combine advanced physical (geotechnical centrifuge) and numerical modelling (Discrete Element Method) to quantify pile peak and post-peak resistances across a wide range of geometrical, loading and soil configurations, establishing a unique and novel database. This database will be used to develop and calibrate a new pile anchor design framework, which will be provided in open access to geotechnical practitioners. The project has dual ambition: (1) to redefine the concept of failure for pile anchors and make it a new design standard, and (2) to embed resilience in design by quantifying residual pile resistance after extreme weather events. UPCareWind will contribute to unlocking new areas for FWT development, and ultimately to reaching carbon neutrality, aligning with central EU policies such as the EU Green Deal and the Clean Energy for EU Islands initiative.
Funded Companies:
| Company name | Funding amount |
| University of Southampton | €260,348 |
Source: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101265795
The filing refers to a past date, and does not necessarily reflect the current state. The current state is available on the following page: University of Southampton, Southampton.