Demonstrating technical industry leadership in geotechnical engineering design at ISFOG 2025

It was with this firmly in mind that Wood Thilsted took a leading part in the Symposium to demonstrate the company’s depth of expertise in offshore wind engineering and its commitment to advancing the field of research in offshore geotechnics.

Over the five days, Wood Thilsted contributed to a world-class technical programme by presenting nine technical papers co-authored by the company’s experts that reflected their active role in advancing geotechnical understanding and innovation.

Of note, Wood Thilsted’s founders, Alastair Muir Wood and Christian LeBlanc Thilsted, gave a keynote presentation at ISFOG on Evolving offshore wind: technical advances and commercial realities that drew on their experiences in developing Wood Thilsted’s offer over the past decade and offered unique insights on the ongoing challenges associated with offshore windfarm design from two of the industry’s leading figures.

They talked about the challenges confronting the geotechnical engineer whose role lies at the heart of the offshore wind sector and which range from:

• Expanding globally into complex geology
• Drilling, pile run & pile driving risks on the rise
• Alternative installation methods under validation
• Vibro, Eq, Jetting
• Earthquake and liquefaction driving design
• Problematic soils: glauconite, carbonate sands, soft silts.

In terms of key points, Alastair and Christian emphasised the fact that complexity does not always equal progress.  In fact, complexity can lead to overdesign, and a well-calibrated simple model will outperform a complex model if it reflects observed behaviour and can be explained transparently.

They highlighted the importance of trusting field data.  An overreliance on lab testing, especially with reconstituted samples and cyclic tests, can mislead, delay, and add project risks.  At a time when the offshore wind sector is facing financial challenges, this point is essential to consider.

Finally, Alastair and Christian argued that in-situ data reflects real conditions and supports timely design.  The offshore wind sector must learn constantly from what it builds.  A systematic back-analysis is essential to improve and validate future design methods.  Therefore, the industry must collaborate and not over-protect data. 

It was clear from ISFOG 2025 that the offshore wind sector has delivered so much and made a significant contribution to Net Zero, however there is much more to achieve. 

Overall, some broad themes emerged from ISFOG 2025 that are worth recalling:

• We are not designing things today the way we were 20 years ago.
• We will not design things tomorrow the way we design them today.
• Offshore wind is an exciting place to be.

For Wood Thilsted, ISFOG represented an excellent opportunity to be at the centre of a major international technical event focused on advancing the sector.  The company would like to extend a big thank you to the organising committee, particularly Co-General Secretary Christelle Abadie (Université Gustave Eiffel).