Numerical and Experimental Modelling of Mooring Systems: Effects of Wave Groupiness on Extreme Loads

Author(s):  
Carlos Barrera Sánchez ◽  
Raúl Guanche ◽  
Iñigo J. Losada ◽  
José A. Armesto ◽  
Daniel de los Dolores

Mooring systems constitute an important element to secure the stability and survival of floating structures. In the last years, its use has increased potentially linked to the growth of marine renewable energies, about all, offshore wind and waves. Traditionally, fixed foundations such as gravity, monopiles or jackets have been installed. However, new alternatives have been developed based on floating structures looking to take advantage of the potential resource in deep waters. This paper involves an exhaustive mooring system study based on catenary configuration from different points of view. Physical modelling was performed by means of different experimental tests under different loading conditions including prescribed movements and natural forcing (waves and currents) considering two different types of seabed: a rigid seabed using the glass of the flume simulating a rocky bottom and a deformable seabed through sandy seabed. Different types of numerical approaches were implemented and they were validated with laboratory tests. Quasi-static and dynamic models were included. Also, a commercial software called SESAM was used to verify the results. Finally, the effect of wave groupiness on extreme loads was analysed using a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine (FOWT).

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):  
Thanh Dam Pham ◽  
Junbae Kim ◽  
Byoungcheon Seo ◽  
Rupesh Kumar ◽  
Youngjae Yu ◽  
...  

Abstract A pilot floating offshore wind turbine project of Korea was proposed for installing in the East Sea of Korea. The prototype is a semisubmersible platform supporting a 750-kW wind turbine. A scaled model was tested in the basin tank of the University of Ulsan at scale ratio 1:40. The 750-kW floating offshore wind turbine was modeled by using the NREL-FAST code. Numerical results were validated by comparing with those of the test model. This paper analyzes dynamic responses and loads of the wind turbine system under extreme environmental conditions. Extreme environmental conditions based on metocean data of East Sea Korea. Extreme responses and extreme loads are important data for designing the structure of the 750 kW semi-submersible floating offshore wind turbine.


2013 ◽  
Vol 790 ◽  
pp. 634-637
Author(s):  
Xue Liang Zhao ◽  
Wei Ming Gong

The offshore wind turbine, especially the floating offshore wind turbine in the deep sea is a perspective technology in the context of increasing energy demands. Mooring system, as an important unit of the floating offshore wind turbine is emphasized. The methods of in-situ test and the laboratory experimental tests are reviewed. Some new testing methods are discussed. The most commonly used anchor systems are explored. The paper aims to present some future research work that is important for the development of the floating offshore wind turbine technology.


Author(s):  
Denis Matha ◽  
Frank Sandner ◽  
Climent Molins ◽  
Alexis Campos ◽  
Po Wen Cheng

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.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mads H. Aa. Madsen ◽  
Frederik Zahle ◽  
Niels N. Sørensen ◽  
Joaquim R. R. A. Martins

Abstract. The wind energy industry relies heavily on CFD to analyze new turbine designs. To utilize CFD further upstream the design process where lower fidelity methods such as BEM are more common, requires the development of new tools. Tools that utilize numerical optimization are particularly valuable because they reduce the reliance on design by trial and error. We present the first comprehensive 3D CFD adjoint-based shape optimization of a modern 10&thisp;MW offshore wind turbine. The optimization problem is aligned with a case study from IEA Wind Task 37, making it possible to compare our findings with the BEM results from this case study, allowing us to determine the value of design optimization based on high-fidelity models. The comparison shows, that the overall design trends suggested by the two models do agree, and that it is particularly valuable to consult the high-fidelity model in areas such as root and tip where BEM is inaccurate. In addition, we compare two different CFD solvers to quantify the effect of modeling compressibility and to estimate the accuracy of the chosen grid resolution and order of convergence of the solver. Meshes up to 14 · 106 cells are used in the optimization whereby flow details are resolved. The present work shows that it is now possible to successfully optimize modern wind turbines aerodynamically under normal operating conditions using RANS models. The key benefit of a 3D RANS approach is that it is possible to optimize the blade planform and cross-sectional shape simultaneously, thus tailoring the shape to the actual 3D flow over the rotor, which is particularly important near the root and tip of the blade. This work does not address evaluation of extreme loads used for structural sizing, where BEM-based methods have proven very accurate, and therefore will likely remain the method of choice.


Author(s):  
P. Agarwal ◽  
L. Manuel

When interest is in estimating long-term design loads for an offshore wind turbine using simulation, statistical extrapolation is the method of choice. While the method itself is rather well-established, simulation effort can be intractable if uncertainty in predicted extreme loads and efficiency in the selected extrapolation procedure are not specifically addressed. Our aim in this study is to address these questions in predicting blade and tower extreme loads based on stochastic response simulations of a 5 MW offshore turbine. We illustrate the use of the peak-over-threshold method to predict long-term extreme loads. To derive these long-term loads, we employ an efficient inverse reliability approach which is shown to predict reasonably accurate long-term loads when compared to the more expensive direct integration of conditional load distributions for different environmental (wind and wave) conditions. Fundamental to the inverse reliability approach is the issue of whether turbine response variability conditional on environmental conditions is modeled in detail or whether only gross conditional statistics of this conditional response are included. We derive design loads for both these cases, and demonstrate that careful inclusion of response variability not only greatly influences long-term design load predictions but it also identifies different design environmental conditions that bring about these long-term loads compared to when response variability is only approximately modeled. As we shall see, for this turbine, a major source of response variability for both the blade and tower arises from blade pitch control actions due to which a large number of simulations is required to obtain stable distribution tails for the turbine loads studied.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (19) ◽  
pp. 6972
Author(s):  
Ervin Hoxha ◽  
Yolanda Vidal ◽  
Francesc Pozo

Cost-competitiveness of offshore wind depends heavily in its capacity to switch preventive maintenance to condition-based maintenance. That is, to monitor the actual condition of the wind turbine (WT) to decide when and which maintenance needs to be done. In particular, structural health monitoring (SHM) to monitor the foundation (support structure) condition is of utmost importance in offshore-fixed wind turbines. In this work a SHM strategy is presented to monitor online and during service a WT offshore jacket-type foundation. Standard SHM techniques, as guided waves with a known input excitation, cannot be used in a straightforward way in this particular application where unknown external perturbations as wind and waves are always present. To face this challenge, a vibration-response-only SHM strategy is proposed via machine learning methods. In this sense, the fractal dimension is proposed as a suitable feature to identify and classify different types of damage. The proposed proof-of-concept technique is validated in an experimental laboratory down-scaled jacket WT foundation undergoing different types of damage.


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