On motion analysis and elastic response of floating offshore wind turbines

Wind energy industry is expanded to offshore and deep water sites, primarily due to the stronger and more consistent wind fields. Floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) concepts involve new engineering and scientific challenges. A combination of waves, current, and wind loads impact the structures. Often under extreme cases, and sometimes in operational conditions, magnitudes of these loads are comparable with each other. The loads and responses may be large, and simultaneous consideration of the combined environmental loads on the response of the structure is essential. Moreover, FOWTs are often large structures and the load frequencies are comparable to the structural frequencies. This requires a fluid–structure–fluid elastic analysis which adds to the complexity of the problem. Here, we present a critical review of the existing approaches that are used to (i) estimate the hydrodynamic and aerodynamic loads on FOWTs, and (ii) to determine the structures’ motion and elastic responses due to the combined loads. Particular attention is given to the coupling of the loads and responses, assumptions made under each of the existing solution approaches, their limitations, and restrictions, where possible, suggestions are provided on areas where further studies are required

Efficient preliminary floating offshore wind turbine design and testing methodologies and application to a concrete spar design

The current key challenge in the floating offshore wind turbine industry and research is on designing economic floating systems that can compete with fixed-bottom offshore turbines in terms of levelized cost of energy. The preliminary platform design, as well as early experimental design assessments, are critical elements in the overall design process. In this contribution, a brief review of current floating offshore wind turbine platform pre-design and scaled testing methodologies is provided, with a focus on their ability to accommodate the coupled dynamic behaviour of floating offshore wind systems. The exemplary design and testing methodology for a monolithic concrete spar platform as performed within the European KIC AFOSP project is presented. Results from the experimental tests compared to numerical simulations are presented and analysed and show very good agreement for relevant basic dynamic platform properties. Extreme and fatigue loads and cost analysis of the AFOSP system confirm the viability of the presented design process. In summary, the exemplary application of the reduced design and testing methodology for AFOSP confirms that it represents a viable procedure during pre-design of floating offshore wind turbine platforms.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Using Multiple Fidelity Numerical Models for Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Advanced Control Design

This paper summarises the tuning process of the Aerodynamic Platform Stabiliser control loop and its performance with Floating Offshore Wind Turbine model. Simplified Low-Order Wind turbine numerical models have been used for the system identification and control tuning process. Denmark Technical University's 10 MW wind turbine model mounted on the TripleSpar platform concept was used for this study. Time-domain simulations were carried out in a fully coupled non-linear aero-hydro-elastic simulation tool FAST, in which wind and wave disturbances were modelled. This testing yielded significant improvements in the overall Floating Offshore Wind Turbine performance and load reduction, validating the control technique presented in this work.This work was partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the research project DPI2017-82930-C2-2-R

CFD investigation of a complete floating offshore wind turbine

This chapter presents numerical computations for floating offshore wind turbines for a machine of 10-MW rated power. The rotors were computed using the Helicopter Multi-Block flow solver of the University of Glasgow that solves the Navier-Stokes equations in integral form using the arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian formulation for time-dependent domains with moving boundaries. Hydrodynamic loads on the support platform were computed using the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics method. This method is mesh-free, and represents the fluid by a set of discrete particles. The motion of the floating offshore wind turbine is computed using a Multi-Body Dynamic Model of rigid bodies and frictionless joints. Mooring cables are modelled as a set of springs and dampers. All solvers were validated separately before coupling, and the loosely coupled algorithm used is described in detail alongside the obtained results

Non-linear dynamic analysis of the response of moored floating structures

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. The complexity of the dynamic response of offshore marine structures requires advanced simulations tools for the accurate assessment of the seakeeping behaviour of these devices. The aim of this work is to present a new time-domain model for solving the dynamics of moored floating marine devices, specifically offshore wind turbines, subjected to non-linear environmental loads. The paper first introduces the formulation of the second-order wave radiation-diffraction solver, designed for calculating the wave-floater interaction. Then, the solver of the mooring dynamics, based on a non-linear Finite Element Method (FEM) approach, is presented. Next, the procedure developed for coupling the floater dynamics model with the mooring model is described. Some validation examples of the developed models, and comparisons among different mooring approaches, are presented. Finally, a study of the OC3 floating wind turbine concept is performed to analyze the influence of the mooring model in the dynamics of the platform and the tension in the mooring lines. The work comes to the conclusion that the coupling of a dynamic mooring model along with a second-order wave radiation-diffraction solver can offer realistic predictions of the floating wind turbine performance.Postprint (published version

Floating Offshore Wind Turbines Oscillations Damping.

This article deals with the modelling and control of oscillations that appear on floating offshore wind turbines (FOWT). First, these offshore wind energy systems, located in deep waters, are described and the modeling approach is presented. Secondly, the traditional structural control strategies based on tuned mass-damper (TMD) systems for oscillations reduction are complemented with a passive mechanism called inerter in order to improve the performance of the structural controller. This work is based on a previous work by the authors in which the inerter was located in parallel to an existing TMD in the nacelle of the FOWT. In this work, the inerter is located between the tower and the barge and results are compared to those obtained previously showing better performance. The results here presented are promising in terms of oscillations damping, both in amplitude and frequency, and constitute preliminary results of the ongoing current research of the authors

Modelling and control of floating offshore wind turbines

This tutorial deals with the modeling and control of floating marine wind turbines. First, these offshore wind energy systems, located on the high seas, in deep waters are described; some modeling approaches are discussed. The power control of these turbines is presented in detail, explaining the different types of control that seek to maximize the energy. The issue of unstable dynamics that can appear in the floating platform due to the wind turbine rotor control is highlighted, something that other types of offshore and onshore turbines do not share. An example shows the reduction of vibrations by applying structural control strategies; results prove that a passive device that is complemented with a mechanism called inerter eliminates the oscillations of the floatin

Establishing a fully coupled CFD analysis tool for floating offshore wind turbines

An accurate study of a floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) system requires 16 interdisciplinary knowledge about wind turbine aerodynamics, floating platform 17 hydrodynamics and mooring line dynamics, as well as interaction between these 18 discipline areas. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) provides a new means of 19 analysing a fully coupled fluid-structure interaction (FSI) system in a detailed manner. 20 In this paper, a numerical tool based on the open source CFD toolbox OpenFOAM for 21 application to FOWTs will be described. Various benchmark cases are first modelled 22 to demonstrate the capability of the tool. The OC4 DeepCWind semi-submersible 23 FOWT model is then investigated under different operating conditions. 24 With this tool, the effects of the dynamic motions of the floating platform on the wind 25 turbine aerodynamic performance and the impact of the wind turbine aerodynamics 26 on the behaviour of the floating platform and on the mooring system responses are 27 examined. The present results provide quantitative information of three-dimensional 28 FSI that may complement related experimental studies. In addition, CFD modelling 29 enables the detailed quantitative analysis of the wind turbine flow field, the pressure 30 distribution along blades and their effects on the wind turbine aerodynamics and the 31 hydrodynamics of the floating structure, which is difficult to carry out experimentally

Time-domain analysis of substructure of a floating offshore wind turbine in waves

This paper aims to analyze the dynamic response of a floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) in waves. Instead of modeling the incident random wave by the traditional wave spectrum and superposition theory, an impulse response function method was used to simulate the incident wave. The incident wave kinematics were evaluated by a convolution of the wave elevation at the original point and the impulse response function in the domain. To check the validity of current wave simulation method, the calculated incident wave velocities were compared with analytical solutions; they showed good agreement. The developed method was then used for the hydrodynamic analysis of the substructure of the FOWT. A direct time-domain method was used to calculate the wave-rigid body interaction problem. The proposed numerical scheme offers an effective way of modeling the incident wave by an arbitrary time series