Breaking Wave Impacts on Offshore Wind Turbine Foundations: Focused Wave Groups and CFD

Author(s):  
Henrik Bredmose ◽  
Niels G. Jacobsen

Extreme wave loads from breaking waves on a monopile foundation are computed within a 3D CFD model. The wave impacts are obtained by application of focused wave groups. For a fixed position of the monopile, the focus location of the wave group is varied to produce impacts with front shapes that varies from early stages of breaking to broken waves. The CFD results for in-line force are compared to load estimates obtained from the Morison equation. The peak loads determined with this simple method are smaller than those of the CFD solution. The computational results appear to suggest that for the impacts of spilling breakers the peak force gets smaller the more developed the breaking is. This is in qualitative agreement with a finding from shallow water impacts on vertical walls: the strongest wave loads are associated with breakers that hit the structure with slightly overturning front. Extensions of the study are discussed.

Author(s):  
Mayilvahanan Alagan Chella ◽  
Hans Bihs ◽  
Dag Myrhaug ◽  
Øivind Asgeir Arntsen

Wave loads from breaking waves on offshore wind turbine (OWT) substructures in shallow waters still remain uncertain. The interaction of breaking waves with structures is characterized by complex free surface deformations, instantaneous impact of the water mass against the structure, and consequently large wave forces on the structures. The main objective of the paper is to investigate wave impact pressures and kinematics during the interaction of breaking waves with a vertical cylinder using the open-source computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model REEF3D. The model is based on the Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes (RANS) equations coupled with the level set method and k–ω turbulence model. Three wave impact conditions are considered in this study. The numerically simulated free surface deformations around the cylinder during the breaking wave interaction are also presented for different wave impact conditions. For three wave impact conditions, the wave impact pressure and the horizontal and vertical components of the particle velocity are computed in front of the cylinder and analyzed. The pressure and velocity profile at their maximum values are also examined and discussed. In addition, the total force is calculated for three breaking conditions and they are correlated with the pressure and kinematics during the interaction.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 286
Author(s):  
Jiawang Liu ◽  
Bin Teng

The “ringing” response of a monopile foundation to focused wave groups was investigated in this study. Such responses are of practical interest in the context of offshore wind turbine foundations. Moderately steep transient focused wave groups were generated in a novel numerical wave tank, based on the high-order spectral method, which was verified and in good agreement with published laboratory data. The monopile was simplified into a slender linear elastic cantilever beam to measure the severity of the structural response. The resonant behavior was excited at the triple-wave frequency of the wave loads. The influence of the damping ratio on the ringing response was considered. Different incident wave models and hydrodynamic models were used to predict the wave loads and induced responses over different wave steepness. The wavelet transform was successfully applied to reveal the local characteristics of the wave loads and ringing response.


Author(s):  
Johan M. Peeringa ◽  
Koen W. Hermans

In the WiFi-JIP project, the impact of steep (and breaking) waves on a monopile support structure was studied. Observations during model tests showed that large tower top accelerations occur due to a slamming wave. Using experiments and simulations results, a new formulation of the design load for a slamming wave was developed. Instead of the embedded stream function, as applied in industry, the wave train is generated with the nonlinear potential flow code Oceanwave3D. On the wave train a set of conditions is applied to find the individual waves, that are closest to the prescribed breaking wave and most likely cause a slamming impact. To study the effect of the new slamming load formulation on different sized offshore wind turbines, aero-hydroelastic simulations were performed on a classic 3MW wind turbine, a modern 4MW wind turbine and a future 10MW wind turbine. The simulations are performed with and without a slamming wave load. The slamming has a clear effect on the tower top acceleration. Accelerations due to the wave impact are highest for the 3MW model at the tower top and at 50m height. A serious tower top acceleration of almost 7m/s2 due to wave slamming is found for the 3MW turbine. This is an increase of 474% compared with the case of Morison wave loads only.


1978 ◽  
Vol 1 (16) ◽  
pp. 148
Author(s):  
G.R. Mogridge ◽  
W.W. Jamieson

Cooling water from a power generating station in Eastern Canada is pumped to an outfall and distributed into the ocean through discharge ports in the sidewalls of a diffuser cap. The cap is essentially a shell-type structure consisting of a submerged circular cylinder 26.5 ft in diameter and 14 ft high. It is located in 25 ft of water at low water level and 54 ft at high water level. Horizontal forces, vertical forces and overturning moments exerted by waves on a 1:36 scale model of the diffuser cap were measured with and without cooling water discharging from the outfall. Tests were run with regular and irregular waves producing both non-breaking and breaking wave loads on the diffuser cap. The overturning moments measured on the diffuser cap were up to 150 percent greater than those on a solid submerged cylinder sealed to the seabed. Unlike sealed cylinders, all of the wave loads measured on the relatively open structure reached maximum values at approximately the same time. The largest wave loads were measured on the diffuser structure when it was subjected to spilling breakers at low water level. For a given wave height, the spilling breakers caused wave loads up to 100 percent greater than those due to non-breaking waves.


Author(s):  
Henrik Bredmose ◽  
Niels G. Jacobsen

Breaking wave impacts on a monopile at 20 m depth are computed with a VOF (Volume Of Fluid) method. The impacting waves are generated by the second-order focused wave group technique, to obtain waves that break at the position of the monopile. The subsequent impact from the vertical run-up flow on a horizontal inspection platform is computed for five different platform levels. The computational results show details of monopile impact such as slamming pressures from the overturning wave front and the formation of run-up flow. The results show that vertical platform impacts can occur at 20 m water depth. The dependence of the vertical platform load to the platform level is discussed. Attention is given to the significant downward force that occur after the upward force associated with the vertical impact. The effect of the numerical resolution on the results is assessed. The position of wave overturning is found to be influenced by the grid resolution. For the lowest platform levels, the vertical impact is found to contribute to the peak values of in-line force and overturning moment.


Author(s):  
Erik Jan de Ridder ◽  
Pieter Aalberts ◽  
Joris van den Berg ◽  
Bas Buchner ◽  
Johan Peeringa

The effects of operational loads and wind loads on offshore monopile wind turbines are well understood. For most sites, however, the water depth is such that breaking or near-breaking waves will occur causing impulsive excitation of the monopile and consequently considerable stresses and displacements in the monopile, tower and turbine. To investigate this, pilot model tests were conducted with a special model of an offshore wind turbine with realistic flexibility tested in (extreme) waves. This flexibility was considered to be necessary for two reasons: the impulsive loading of extreme waves is very complex and there can be an interaction between this excitation and the dynamic response of the foundation and tower. The tests confirmed the importance of the topic of breaking waves: horizontal accelerations of more than 0.5g were recorded at nacelle level in extreme cases.


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):  
Tim Bunnik ◽  
Joop Helder ◽  
Erik-Jan de Ridder

The effects of operational wave loads and wind loads on offshore mono pile wind turbines are well understood. For most sites, however, the water depth is such that breaking or near-breaking waves will occur causing impulsive excitation of the mono pile and consequently considerable stresses, displacements and accelerations in the mono pile, tower and turbine. Model tests with a flexible mono pile wind turbine were carried out to investigate the effect of breaking waves. In these model tests the flexibility of the turbine was realistically modelled. These model tests were used for validation of a numerical model for the flexible response of wind turbines due to breaking waves. A focusing wave group has been selected which breaks just aft of the wind turbine. The numerical model consists of a one-way coupling between a CFD model for breaking wave loads and a simplified structural model based on mode shapes. An iterative wave calibration technique has been developed in the CFD method to ensure a good match between the measured and simulated incoming wave profile. This makes a deterministic comparison between simulations and measurements possible. This iteration is carried out in a 2D CFD domain (long-crested wave restriction) and is therefore relatively cheap. The calibrated CFD wave is then simulated in a (shorter) 3D CFD domain including a (fixed) wind turbine. The resulting wave pressures on the turbine have been used to compute the modal excitation and subsequently the modal response of the wind turbine. The horizontal accelerations resulting from this one-way coupling are in good agreement with the measured accelerations.


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