Monopile Scour: Seabed Erosion at an Offshore Wind Foundation

Most offshore wind turbines stand on a single large-diameter steel monopile driven into the seabed. Any steady tidal or storm current striking that pile spins up a horseshoe vortex at its upstream base and shedding wake vortices in its lee, together excavating a scour pit that can undermine the foundation if left unmitigated. This simulator renders that pit forming in real time from the Shields threshold of motion and the Sumer & Fredsøe equilibrium-scour relation for a circular pile, driven by an adjustable current speed and sediment grain size, developing exponentially toward its equilibrium depth, and lets you switch on rock-armor scour protection to see how the standard offshore mitigation suppresses it.