The role of centrifuge modelling in capturing whole-life responses of geotechnical infrastructure to optimise design

Whole-life design relies on scrutinizing the geotechnical responses to whole of life loading sequences, through installation and operation or service, and partnering appropriate 'current' operational soil parameters with corresponding 'current' loading to optimize design outcomes. Whole-life design offers efficiencies over established design methods that are based on in situ soil parameters. In the current environmental and economic climate, established paradigms of design are being challenged to make way for enabling technologies to deliver projects of greater scale and complexity for less risk and cost. Whole-life design can be applied to a range of geotechnical boundary value problems - and can best be practically investigated in a centrifuge environment. This paper demonstrates the role of centrifuge modelling to identify governing mechanisms of whole-life response as a critical activity in the trajectory from design concept to implementation in engineering practice. The role of geotechnical centrifuge modelling in capturing whole-life response to optimize offshore foundation design is illustrated, although the overarching concepts put forward in the paper have much broader application.