Heerema Wins DNV GL Support for 'Silent Foundations'

Heerema has been working on developing 'silent foundations' which are pile foundations for offshore structures that can be installed without loud hammering. As this can be harmful to marine life and requires noise mitigation systems that produce a considerable CO2 footprint, the industry is searching for other ways to safely install offshore wind turbine foundations. The concepts being investigated are helical or screw piles and so-called push-in piles.

Heerema has now announced that DNV GL awarded a Statement of Feasibility to both concepts that are under development. Despite the challenges in 2020, this development could continue with the University of Dundee's support, who executed an extensive testing and modeling program. 

As part of a technology qualification process, the results were extensively discussed with DNV GL, and several workshops were conducted to review the foundation concepts and the development results. The Statements of Feasibility are the first formal step towards qualifying these technologies for actual use in offshore structures.