Dynamic Analysis of a Braceless Semisubmersible Offshore Wind Turbine in Operational Conditions

AbstractThe development of cost effective floating type offshore wind turbines has been desired in deep sea areas. Semisubmersible platform can be considered as a very efficient design configuration among the different type proposed floating platforms. In the present paper, a preliminary assessment of the dynamic behavior of a 5-MW braceless semisubmersible offshore wind turbine with three columns and two fully submerged pontoons is presented for selected environmental operational conditions that correspond to a deep water offshore site with depth 200 m. Hydro-aero-servo-elastic time domain analysis is performed with the use of the coupled analysis tool Simo-Riflex-AeroDyn in order to calculate the dynamic behavior and response of the offshore floating wind turbine. Statistical values and spectra of time histories of response quantities are presented. The results demonstrate the feasibility of the presented deep sea floating wind turbine concept

Stochastic Dynamic Response Analysis of Spar-Type Wind Turbines with Catenary or Taut Mooring Systems

Floating wind turbines can be the most practical and economical way to extract the vast offshore wind energy resources at deep and intermediate water depths. The Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy is strongly committed to developing offshore wind technology that utilises available renewable energy sources. As the wind is steadier and stronger over the sea than over land, the wind industry recently moved to offshore areas. Analysis of the structural dynamic response of offshore wind turbines subjected to stochastic wave and wind loads is an important aspect of the assessment of their potential for power production and of their structural integrity. Of the concepts that have been proposed for floating wind turbines, spar-types such as the catenary moored spar (CMS) and tension leg spar (TLS) wind turbines seem to be well-suited to the harsh environmental conditions that exist in the North Sea. Hywind and Sway are two examples of such Norwegian concepts; they are based on the CMS and TLS, respectively. Floating wind turbines are sophisticated structures that are subjected to simultaneous wind and wave actions. The coupled nonlinear structural dynamics and motion response equations of these turbines introduce geometrical nonlinearities through the relative motions and velocities. Moreover, the hydrodynamic and aerodynamic loading of this type of structure is nonlinear. A floating wind turbine is a multibody aero-hydro-servo-elastic structural system; for such structures, the coupled nonlinear equations of motion considering nonlinear excitation and damping forces, including all wave- and wind-induced features, should be solved in the time domain. In this thesis, the motion and structural responses for operational and extreme environmental conditions were considered to investigate the performance and the structural integrity of spar-type floating wind turbines. The power production and the effects of aerodynamic and hydrodynamic damping, including wind-induced hydrodynamic and wave-induced aerodynamic damping, were investigated. Negative damping adversely affects the power performance and structural integrity. In this thesis, the controller gains were tuned to remove servo-induced instabilities. The rotor configuration effect on the responses and power production was investigated by comparing the upwind and downwind turbines. To develop robust design tools for offshore wind power, the competencies of the offshore technology and wind technology must be combined. Both the offshore and wind energy industries have begun to extend their existing numerical codes to account for the combined aerodynamic and hydrodynamic effects on the structure. As a result verifications of extended codes by doing experiments and code-to-code comparisons are needed. One of the aspects of the present research was to fill this gap by performing hydrodynamic and hydro-elastic comparison between commercial codes. For both CMS and TLS concepts, the comparisons were carried out prior to using the tools to study the behaviour of the CMS and TLS under wave- and wind-induced loads. Offshore structures encounter a variety of operational and harsh environmental conditions. Limit states such as ultimate, fatigue, accidental collapse and serviceability limit states (ULS, FLS, ALS and SLS) are defined as the design criteria for offshore structures. In performing realistic ultimate limit state analysis, the extreme responses of a floating wind turbine over its life should be estimated. This estimation requires detailed analysis of the extreme response. In the present thesis, extreme value analysis for spar-type wind turbines subjected to simultaneous wave and wind actions was preformed. The structural responses and the effect of modelled forces such as turbulence on these responses were investigated. The joint distribution of the environmental characteristics of the wave and wind was applied through the contour surface method. Stochastic wave and wind analysis showed that, while rigid body modelling was sufficient for obtaining accurate motions, consideration of the elastic behaviour of the tower/support structure was necessary to predict structural responses. The blades structural responses were found to be significantly affected by the turbulent wind. However, the mean and standard deviation of global motion and structural responses were not affected by the turbulence. Thus, to reduce the simulation time in fatigue analysis, a constant wind speed model can be applied. The CMS and TLS wind turbines are inertia-dominated structures, and the hydrodynamic viscous drag did not affect their wave-induced responses, while an increase in viscous drag could effectively reduce the resonant responses of such turbines. Under operational conditions, aerodynamic damping was found to be active in reducing both wave frequency and resonant responses. The results showed that, for a floating wind turbine, extreme response could occur in survival conditions, while for a fixed wind turbine, the extreme response occurs in operational cases related to the rated wind speed. To estimate the extreme value responses, extrapolation methods were used to reduce the sample size in Monte Carlo simulations. The accuracy of methods to estimate the extreme responses as a function of sample size and methods applied was investigated. The normalized responses for both CMS and TLS offshore wind turbines were presented to draw more generalized conclusions

Stochastic Dynamic Response Analysis of Spar-Type Wind Turbines with Catenary or Taut Mooring Systems

Floating wind turbines can be the most practical and economical way to extract the vast offshore wind energy resources at deep and intermediate water depths. The Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy is strongly committed to developing offshore wind technology that utilises available renewable energy sources. As the wind is steadier and stronger over the sea than over land, the wind industry recently moved to offshore areas. Analysis of the structural dynamic response of offshore wind turbines subjected to stochastic wave and wind loads is an important aspect of the assessment of their potential for power production and of their structural integrity. Of the concepts that have been proposed for floating wind turbines, spar-types such as the catenary moored spar (CMS) and tension leg spar (TLS) wind turbines seem to be well-suited to the harsh environmental conditions that exist in the North Sea. Hywind and Sway are two examples of such Norwegian concepts; they are based on the CMS and TLS, respectively. Floating wind turbines are sophisticated structures that are subjected to simultaneous wind and wave actions. The coupled nonlinear structural dynamics and motion response equations of these turbines introduce geometrical nonlinearities through the relative motions and velocities. Moreover, the hydrodynamic and aerodynamic loading of this type of structure is nonlinear. A floating wind turbine is a multibody aero-hydro-servo-elastic structural system; for such structures, the coupled nonlinear equations of motion considering nonlinear excitation and damping forces, including all wave- and wind-induced features, should be solved in the time domain. In this thesis, the motion and structural responses for operational and extreme environmental conditions were considered to investigate the performance and the structural integrity of spar-type floating wind turbines. The power production and the effects of aerodynamic and hydrodynamic damping, including wind-induced hydrodynamic and wave-induced aerodynamic damping, were investigated. Negative damping adversely affects the power performance and structural integrity. In this thesis, the controller gains were tuned to remove servo-induced instabilities. The rotor configuration effect on the responses and power production was investigated by comparing the upwind and downwind turbines. To develop robust design tools for offshore wind power, the competencies of the offshore technology and wind technology must be combined. Both the offshore and wind energy industries have begun to extend their existing numerical codes to account for the combined aerodynamic and hydrodynamic effects on the structure. As a result verifications of extended codes by doing experiments and code-to-code comparisons are needed. One of the aspects of the present research was to fill this gap by performing hydrodynamic and hydro-elastic comparison between commercial codes. For both CMS and TLS concepts, the comparisons were carried out prior to using the tools to study the behaviour of the CMS and TLS under wave- and wind-induced loads. Offshore structures encounter a variety of operational and harsh environmental conditions. Limit states such as ultimate, fatigue, accidental collapse and serviceability limit states (ULS, FLS, ALS and SLS) are defined as the design criteria for offshore structures. In performing realistic ultimate limit state analysis, the extreme responses of a floating wind turbine over its life should be estimated. This estimation requires detailed analysis of the extreme response. In the present thesis, extreme value analysis for spar-type wind turbines subjected to simultaneous wave and wind actions was preformed. The structural responses and the effect of modelled forces such as turbulence on these responses were investigated. The joint distribution of the environmental characteristics of the wave and wind was applied through the contour surface method. Stochastic wave and wind analysis showed that, while rigid body modelling was sufficient for obtaining accurate motions, consideration of the elastic behaviour of the tower/support structure was necessary to predict structural responses. The blades structural responses were found to be significantly affected by the turbulent wind. However, the mean and standard deviation of global motion and structural responses were not affected by the turbulence. Thus, to reduce the simulation time in fatigue analysis, a constant wind speed model can be applied. The CMS and TLS wind turbines are inertia-dominated structures, and the hydrodynamic viscous drag did not affect their wave-induced responses, while an increase in viscous drag could effectively reduce the resonant responses of such turbines. Under operational conditions, aerodynamic damping was found to be active in reducing both wave frequency and resonant responses. The results showed that, for a floating wind turbine, extreme response could occur in survival conditions, while for a fixed wind turbine, the extreme response occurs in operational cases related to the rated wind speed. To estimate the extreme value responses, extrapolation methods were used to reduce the sample size in Monte Carlo simulations. The accuracy of methods to estimate the extreme responses as a function of sample size and methods applied was investigated. The normalized responses for both CMS and TLS offshore wind turbines were presented to draw more generalized conclusions

Sensitivity Analysis of Limited Actuation for Real-time Hybrid Model Testing of 5MW Bottom-fixed Offshore Wind Turbine

The present paper studies the effect of limited actuation for real-time hybrid model testing (ReaTHM® testing) of a bottom-fixed offshore wind turbine in operational, parked, and fault conditions. ReaTHM® testing is a new approach for conducting small-scale experimental campaigns and has recently applied to test a braceless semisubmersible floating wind turbine in MARINTEK ocean basin [1, 2, 3]. The aerodynamic loads on the wind turbine were applied based on simultaneous simulations coupled to the experiments while the wave loads and floater response were physically tested. The effects of actuation limitation on the ReaTHM® testing setup for the semisubmersible wind turbine were investigated previously [4] using numerical simulations, by not including some components of the aerodynamic loads or by inducing error (for example in the direction of the force actuation). In this paper, the same approach is used to investigate the sensitivity of a bottom-fixed 5MW offshore wind turbine to limited actuation. The consequences of limited actuation are also considered for fault conditions (grid loss, and blade seize with and without shutdown) due to the potential importance of fault events for the ultimate and accidental limit state analysis. For the operational turbine, most responses of interest were not strongly dependent on the studied limitations in actuation, but the aerodynamic pitch and yaw moments were important for fault cases.publishedVersio