As a result of wind power’s expansion over the globe, offshore wind turbines (OWTs) are being projected in seismic prone areas. In parallel, the industry develops increasingly larger and more powerful generators. Many of the seismic response analyses of wind turbines conducted so far only consider smaller units. In this paper, a finite element substructuring model in frequency domain is used to compute the seismic response of four reference OWTs from 5 to 15 MW founded on monopiles embedded in several homogeneous soil profiles with shear wave velocities from 100 to 300 m/s and subjected to different accelerograms. The foundation behaviour is obtained through a continuum model including kinematic and inertial interaction. The relevance of soil-structure interaction and main trends of the seismic response of OWTs are inferred from the presented results. Although the seismic maximum bending moments increase with the size of the OWT system, their relevance with respect to the ones produced by design loads decreases as the turbine gets bigger. The same effect is observed for the shear forces if the soil is soft enough. The inclusion of SSI effects almost duplicates the seismic response when compared to the rigid base scenario.

Noise levels of anthropogenic origin in urban environments have reached thresholds that pose serious public health and quality of life problems. This paper/work aims to examine these noise levels, the underlying causes of their increase and possible solutions through the implementation of predictive models. To address this problem, as a first step, a simplified mathematical model capable of accurately predicting anthropogenic noise levels in a given area is developed. As variables, this model considers the crowd density, estimated using an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) capable of detecting people in images, as well as the geometric and architectural characteristics of the environment. To verify the model, several protocols have been developed for collecting experimental data. In a first phase, these experimental measurements were carried out in controlled environments, using loudspeakers as noise sources. In a second phase, these measurements were carried out in real environments, accounting for the specific noise sources present in each setting. The difference in sound levels between the model and reality is proven to be less than 3 dB in 75% and less than 3.5 dB in 100% of the cases examined in a controlled environment. In the real problem, in general terms and taking into account that the study is carried out on pedestrian streets, it seems that the model is able to reproduce most of the noise of anthropogenic origin.