The growing demand for renewable energy supply stimulates a drastic increase in the deployment rate of offshore wind energy. Offshore wind power generators are usually supported by large foundation piles that are driven into the seabed with hydraulic impact hammers or vibratory devices. The pile installation process, which is key to the construction of every new wind farm, is hindered by a serious by-product: the underwater noise pollution. This paper presents a comprehensive review of the state-of-the-art computational methods to predict the underwater noise emission by the installation of foundation piles offshore including the available noise mitigation strategies. Future challenges in the field are identified under the prism of the ever-increasing size of wind turbines and the emerging pile driving technologies.

This paper presents a computationally efficient modeling approach for predicting underwater noise radiation from offshore pile driving. The complete noise prediction model comprises two modules. First, a sound generation module is adopted to capture the interaction between the pile, the fluid, and the seabed, aiming at modeling the sound generation and propagation in the vicinity of the pile. Second, a sound propagation module is developed to propagate the sound field at larger distances from the pile. To couple the input wavefield obtained from the sound generation module, the boundary integral equations (BIEs) are formulated based on the acousto-elastodynamic reciprocity theorem. To advance the mathematical formulation of the BIEs, the Green's tensor for an axisymmetric ring load is derived using the complex wavenumber integration technique. The model advances the computational efficiency and flexibility of the noise prediction in both near- and far-fields from the pile. Finally, model predictions are benchmarked against a theoretical scenario and validated using measurement data from a recent offshore pile-installation campaign.