Comparison of Epoxy Coating Degradations Under Impingement Flow and Stationary Immersion

Author(s):  
Amin Vedadi ◽  
M. Subbir Parvej ◽  
Xinnan Wang ◽  
Yechun Wang

Abstract Offshore wind turbines are considered as a reliable source of electricity generation. However, due to the large cost of the construction and installation of offshore wind turbines, most wind turbines are designed to operate for more than 20 years. One of the biggest issues which causes a severe damage to the construction of wind turbines is the existence of a very corrosive environment including large mechanical loads applied to the construction by the waves and the high concentration of salt and other chemicals in the sea water. The construction of offshore wind turbine can be divided into four main regions based on the types of exposure to the water and the corrosive environment, including submerged zone, tidal zone, splash zone, and atmospheric zone. In this study, experiments were conducted to compare the impact of impingement flow of 3.5 w.t.% NaCl solution on the epoxy coating samples to the exposure of the same type of samples to a stationary 3.5 w.t.% NaCl solution. Those two exposure conditions correspond to the environments at the top and the bottom part of the submerged zone of offshore wind turbines respectively. Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) method was used to monitor the degradation of organic coatings. The surface roughness was measured by Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). The roughness of the coated surfaces before and after the exposure was compared. For the two different flow conditions, i.e. impingement flow and stationary immersion, significant differences have been discovered from the EIS results and AFM results. We observed a more severe degradation in the epoxy coatings in impingement flow, and a rougher surface is formed for coating samples subjected to impingement flow.

Author(s):  
Vipin Chakkurunni Palliyalil ◽  
Panneer Selvam Rajamanickam ◽  
Mayilvahanan Alagan Chella ◽  
Vijaya Kumar Govindasamy

The main objective of the paper is to investigate wave impact forces from breaking waves on a monopile substructure for offshore wind turbine in shallow waters. This study examines the load assessment parameters relevant for breaking wave forces on a vertical circular cylinder subjected to breaking waves. Experiments are conducted in a shallow water flume and the wave generation is based on piston type wave maker. The experiments are performed with a vertical circular cylinder with diameter, D = 0.20m which represents a monopile substructure for offshore wind turbines with regular waves of frequencies around 0.8Hz. The experimental setup consists of a 1/10 slope followed by a horizontal bed portion with a water depth of 0.8m. Plunging breaking waves are generated and free surface elevations are measured at different locations along the wave tank from wave paddle to the cylinder in order to find the breaking characteristics. Wave impact pressures are measured on the cylinder at eight different vertical positions along the height of the cylinder under breaking waves for different environmental conditions. The wave impact pressures and wave surface elevations in the vicinity of the cylinder during the impact for three different wave conditions are presented and discussed.


Author(s):  
Jose´ G. Rangel-Rami´rez ◽  
John D. So̸rensen

Deterioration processes such as fatigue and corrosion are typically affecting offshore structures. To “control” this deterioration, inspection and maintenance activities are developed. Probabilistic methodologies represent an important tool to identify the suitable strategy to inspect and control the deterioration in structures such as offshore wind turbines (OWT). Besides these methods, the integration of condition monitoring information (CMI) can optimize the mitigation activities as an updating tool. In this paper, a framework for risk-based inspection and maintenance planning (RBI) is applied for OWT incorporating CMI, addressing this analysis to fatigue prone details in welded steel joints at jacket or tripod steel support structures for offshore wind turbines. The increase of turbulence in wind farms is taken into account by using a code-based turbulence model. Further, additional modes t integrate CMI in the RBI approach for optimal planning of inspection and maintenance. As part of the results, the life cycle reliabilities and inspection times are calculated, showing that earlier inspections are needed at in-wind farm sites. This is expected due to the wake turbulence increasing the wind load. With the integration of CMI by means Bayesian inference, a slightly change of first inspection times are coming up, influenced by the reduction of the uncertainty and harsher or milder external agents.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 574
Author(s):  
Rundong Yan ◽  
Sarah Dunnett

In order to improve the operation and maintenance (O&M) of offshore wind turbines, a new Petri net (PN)-based offshore wind turbine maintenance model is developed in this paper to simulate the O&M activities in an offshore wind farm. With the aid of the PN model developed, three new potential wind turbine maintenance strategies are studied. They are (1) carrying out periodic maintenance of the wind turbine components at different frequencies according to their specific reliability features; (2) conducting a full inspection of the entire wind turbine system following a major repair; and (3) equipping the wind turbine with a condition monitoring system (CMS) that has powerful fault detection capability. From the research results, it is found that periodic maintenance is essential, but in order to ensure that the turbine is operated economically, this maintenance needs to be carried out at an optimal frequency. Conducting a full inspection of the entire wind turbine system following a major repair enables efficient utilisation of the maintenance resources. If periodic maintenance is performed infrequently, this measure leads to less unexpected shutdowns, lower downtime, and lower maintenance costs. It has been shown that to install the wind turbine with a CMS is helpful to relieve the burden of periodic maintenance. Moreover, the higher the quality of the CMS, the more the downtime and maintenance costs can be reduced. However, the cost of the CMS needs to be considered, as a high cost may make the operation of the offshore wind turbine uneconomical.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 543
Author(s):  
Jiawen Li ◽  
Jingyu Bian ◽  
Yuxiang Ma ◽  
Yichen Jiang

A typhoon is a restrictive factor in the development of floating wind power in China. However, the influences of multistage typhoon wind and waves on offshore wind turbines have not yet been studied. Based on Typhoon Mangkhut, in this study, the characteristics of the motion response and structural loads of an offshore wind turbine are investigated during the travel process. For this purpose, a framework is established and verified for investigating the typhoon-induced effects of offshore wind turbines, including a multistage typhoon wave field and a coupled dynamic model of offshore wind turbines. On this basis, the motion response and structural loads of different stages are calculated and analyzed systematically. The results show that the maximum response does not exactly correspond to the maximum wave or wind stage. Considering only the maximum wave height or wind speed may underestimate the motion response during the traveling process of the typhoon, which has problems in guiding the anti-typhoon design of offshore wind turbines. In addition, the coupling motion between the floating foundation and turbine should be considered in the safety evaluation of the floating offshore wind turbine under typhoon conditions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 589
Author(s):  
Subhamoy Bhattacharya ◽  
Domenico Lombardi ◽  
Sadra Amani ◽  
Muhammad Aleem ◽  
Ganga Prakhya ◽  
...  

Offshore wind turbines are a complex, dynamically sensitive structure due to their irregular mass and stiffness distribution, and complexity of the loading conditions they need to withstand. There are other challenges in particular locations such as typhoons, hurricanes, earthquakes, sea-bed currents, and tsunami. Because offshore wind turbines have stringent Serviceability Limit State (SLS) requirements and need to be installed in variable and often complex ground conditions, their foundation design is challenging. Foundation design must be robust due to the enormous cost of retrofitting in a challenging environment should any problem occur during the design lifetime. Traditionally, engineers use conventional types of foundation systems, such as shallow gravity-based foundations (GBF), suction caissons, or slender piles or monopiles, based on prior experience with designing such foundations for the oil and gas industry. For offshore wind turbines, however, new types of foundations are being considered for which neither prior experience nor guidelines exist. One of the major challenges is to develop a method to de-risk the life cycle of offshore wind turbines in diverse metocean and geological conditions. The paper, therefore, has the following aims: (a) provide an overview of the complexities and the common SLS performance requirements for offshore wind turbine; (b) discuss the use of physical modelling for verification and validation of innovative design concepts, taking into account all possible angles to de-risk the project; and (c) provide examples of applications in scaled model tests.


Author(s):  
Daniel Buhagiar ◽  
Tonio Sant ◽  
Marvin K. Bugeja

The viability of offshore wind turbines is presently affected by a number of technical issues pertaining to the gearbox and power electronic components. Current work is considering the possibility of replacing the generator, gearbox and electrical transmission with a hydraulic system. Efficiency of the hydraulic transmission is around 90% for the selected geometries, which is comparable to the 94% expected for conventional wind turbines. A rotor-driven pump pressurises seawater that is transmitted across a large pipeline to a centralised generator platform. Hydroelectric energy conversion takes place in Pelton turbine. However, unlike conventional hydro-energy plants, the head available at the nozzle entry is highly unsteady. Adequate active control at the nozzle is therefore crucial in maintaining a fixed line pressure and an optimum Pelton turbine operation at synchronous speed. This paper presents a novel control scheme that is based on the combination of proportional feedback control and feed forward compensation on a variable area nozzle. Transient domain simulation results are presented for a Pelton wheel supplied by sea water from an offshore wind turbine-driven pump across a 10 km pipeline.


Energies ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 579
Author(s):  
Taimoor Asim ◽  
Sheikh Zahidul Islam ◽  
Arman Hemmati ◽  
Muhammad Saif Ullah Khalid

Offshore wind turbines are becoming increasingly popular due to their higher wind energy harnessing capabilities and lower visual pollution. Researchers around the globe have been reporting significant scientific advancements in offshore wind turbines technology, addressing key issues, such as aerodynamic characteristics of turbine blades, dynamic response of the turbine, structural integrity of the turbine foundation, design of the mooring cables, ground scouring and cost modelling for commercial viability. These investigations range from component-level design and analysis to system-level response and optimization using a multitude of analytical, empirical and numerical techniques. With such wide-ranging studies available in the public domain, there is a need to carry out an extensive yet critical literature review on the recent advancements in offshore wind turbine technology. Offshore wind turbine blades’ aerodynamics and the structural integrity of offshore wind turbines are of particular importance, which can lead towards system’s optimal design and operation, leading to reduced maintenance costs. Thus, in this study, our focus is to highlight key knowledge gaps in the scientific investigations on offshore wind turbines’ aerodynamic and structural response. It is envisaged that this study will pave the way for future concentrated efforts in better understanding the complex behavior of these machines.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (24) ◽  
pp. 11665
Author(s):  
Shi Liu ◽  
Yi Yang ◽  
Chao Wang ◽  
Yuangang Tu

Spar-type floating offshore wind turbines commonly vibrate excessively when under the coupling impact of wind and wave. The wind turbine vibration can be controlled by developing its mooring system. Thus, this study proposes a novel mooring system for the spar-type floating offshore wind turbine. The proposed mooring system has six mooring lines, which are divided into three groups, with two mooring lines in the same group being connected to the same fairlead. Subsequently, the effects of the included angle between the two mooring lines on the mooring-system’s performance are investigated. Then, these six mooring lines are connected to six independent fairleads for comparison. FAST is utilized to calculate wind turbine dynamic response. Wind turbine surge, pitch, and yaw movements are presented and analyzed in time and frequency domains to quantitatively evaluate the performances of the proposed mooring systems. Compared with the mooring system with six fairleads, the mooring system with three fairleads performed better. When the included angle was 40°, surge, pitch, and yaw movement amplitudes of the wind turbine reduced by 39.51%, 6.8%, and 12.34%, respectively, when under regular waves; they reduced by 56.08%, 25.00%, and 47.5%, respectively, when under irregular waves. Thus, the mooring system with three fairleads and 40° included angle is recommended.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Auraluck Pichitkul ◽  
Lakshmi N. Sankar

Abstract Wind engineering technology has been continuously investigated and developed over the past several decades in response to steadily growing demand for renewable energy resources, in order to meet the increased demand for power production, fixed and floating platforms with different mooring configurations have been fielded, accommodating large-scale offshore wind turbines in deep water areas. In this study, the aerodynamic loads on such systems are modeled using a computational structural dynamics solver called OpenFAST developed by National Renewable Energy Laboratory, coupled to an in-house computational fluid dynamics solver called GT-Hybrid. Coupling of the structural/aerodynamic motion time history with the CFD analysis is done using an open File I/O process. At this writing, only a one-way coupling has been attempted, feeding the blade motion and structural deformations from OpenFAST into the fluid dynamics analysis. The sectional aerodynamic loads for a large scale 5 MW offshore wind turbine are presented, and compared against the baseline OpenFAST simulations with classical blade element-momentum theory. Encouraging agreement has been observed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (4) ◽  
pp. 1017-1031 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying Xu ◽  
George Nikitas ◽  
Tong Zhang ◽  
Qinghua Han ◽  
Marios Chryssanthopoulos ◽  
...  

The offshore wind turbines are dynamically sensitive, whose fundamental frequency can be very close to the forcing frequencies activated by the environmental and turbine loads. Minor changes of support conditions may lead to the shift of natural frequencies, and this could be disastrous if resonance happens. To monitor the support conditions and thus to enhance the safety of offshore wind turbines, a model updating method is developed in this study. A hybrid sensing system was fabricated and set up in the laboratory to investigate the long-term dynamic behaviour of the offshore wind turbine system with monopile foundation in sandy deposits. A finite element model was constructed to simulate structural behaviours of the offshore wind turbine system. Distributed nonlinear springs and a roller boundary condition are used to model the soil–structure interaction properties. The finite element model and the test results were used to analyse the variation of the support condition of the monopile, through an finite element model updating process using estimation of distribution algorithms. The results show that the fundamental frequency of the test model increases after a period under cyclic loading, which is attributed to the compaction of the surrounding sand instead of local damage of the structure. The hybrid sensing system is reliable to detect both the acceleration and strain responses of the offshore wind turbine model and can be potentially applied to the remote monitoring of real offshore wind turbines. The estimation of distribution algorithm–based model updating technique is demonstrated to be successful for the support condition monitoring of the offshore wind turbine system, which is potentially useful for other model updating and condition monitoring applications.


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