scholarly journals DeepCwind Semi-Submersible Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Platform with Nonlinear Multi-Segment Catenary Mooring Line and Intermediate Buoy

Author(s):  
mohammad motallebi ◽  
Hassan Ghassemi

In this paper, with the purpose of improving the mechanical behavior of DeepCwind semi-submersible floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) platform mooring lines, nonlinear catenary cables of platform are divided into multi-segments and intermediate buoy. The mathematical formulations of the dynamic equation acted on the cable with buoys are described. Present study is employed to the OC4-DeepCwind semi-submersible FOWT platform. It is designed for 200-meter water depth with mooring lines consist of three catenary steel chain cables that have an angle of 120 degrees to each other. The dynamic response of multi-segment catenary mooring line with different buoys radiuses and different positions along the cables were investigated. The full-scale platform was modeled in ANSYS-AQWA software and the simulations are performed in harsh offshore. The tension, strain, anchor uplift, cable uplift for different buoy radiuses and its position along cable are presented and discussed. Moreover, platform motions at three directions (surge, heave and pitch) are also analyzed. It is concluded that by correct selection of the buoy volume and position along cable, the tension of the cable may be reduced up to 45%. By incorrect selection of the buoy, the results will cause adverse effects.

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yane Li ◽  
Conghuan Le ◽  
Hongyan Ding ◽  
Puyang Zhang ◽  
Jian Zhang

The paper discusses the effects of mooring configurations on the dynamic response of a submerged floating offshore wind turbine (SFOWT) for intermediate water depths. A coupled dynamic model of a wind turbine-tower-floating platform-mooring system is established, and the dynamic response of the platform, tensions in mooring lines, and bending moment at the tower base and blade root under four different mooring configurations are checked. A well-stabilized configuration (i.e., four vertical lines and 12 diagonal lines with an inclination angle of 30°) is selected to study the coupled dynamic responses of SFOWT with broken mooring lines, and in order to keep the safety of SFOWT under extreme sea-states, the pretension of the vertical mooring line has to increase from 1800–2780 kN. Results show that the optimized mooring system can provide larger restoring force, and the SFOWT has a smaller movement response under extreme sea-states; when the mooring lines in the upwind wave direction are broken, an increased motion response of the platform will be caused. However, there is no slack in the remaining mooring lines, and the SFOWT still has enough stability.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (10) ◽  
pp. 1093
Author(s):  
Shan Gao ◽  
Lixian Zhang ◽  
Wei Shi ◽  
Bin Wang ◽  
Xin Li

Offshore wind energy, a clean energy resource, is considered to be a possible alternative to fossil energy. Floating offshore wind technology is considered to be a proper concept to develop abundant wind energy in deep water. Considering the reality of offshore wind energy development in China, the floating offshore wind turbine concept is expected to be developed at moderate water depths. In this paper, a mooring system of the WindFloat semisubmersible floating offshore wind turbine (SFOWT) at a water depth of 60 m is designed. The dynamic responses of the WindFloat SFOWT under different wind–wave combination conditions are investigated using the coupled method and the simplified method, which do not include the effect of the tower top motion in the aerodynamic calculation. The results show that the dynamic responses of the WindFloat SFOWT, including the platform motions, tower loads, and mooring line tensions, perform fairly well at a moderate water depth. A comparison between the coupled method and simplified method shows that the calculated results are slightly different between the different conditions for the time domain results, response spectra results, and fatigue results. In addition, mooring line 1 (ML 1) suffers higher fatigue damage than ML2, which should be paid more attention.


Author(s):  
Wei-ting Hsu ◽  
Krish P. Thiagarajan ◽  
Matthew Hall ◽  
Michael MacNicoll ◽  
Richard Akers

There are a number of design challenges facing mooring systems of floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) platforms in an offshore environment. Some unique aspects of the FOWT industry should be considered when examining applicability of established offshore mooring practices. Important among these are: economy and cost effectiveness; light weight minimal platforms; and water depths ranging from 50–300 m. A lighter displacement platform in shallow water, supported by lines with light to moderate pre-tension can result in a higher probability of slack line events and hence snap loads during re-engagement. Such loads can result in shock on the line material and considerably reduce the fatigue life. Such events have the potential to occur in various sea states, and not necessarily limited to extreme conditions. These conditions will be dependent on structure resonant motions, which are influenced by wind loads and moments, wave conditions and mooring line properties. Model tests of typical concepts for FOWT reported in literature have shown occasional slack line episodes. This paper is a review of literature on snap load occurrence in marine applications, including lifting and lowering operations, ROV and diving bell operations. This paper presents a case study of a FOWT. Special focus is on mooring systems which are affected by impact load conditions. Criteria are reviewed and consequences are documented.


Author(s):  
H. K. Jang ◽  
H. C. Kim ◽  
M. H. Kim ◽  
K. H. Kim

Numerical tools for a single floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) have been developed by a number of researchers, while the investigation of multi-unit floating offshore wind turbines (MUFOWT) has rarely been performed. Recently, a numerical simulator was developed by TAMU to analyze the coupled dynamics of MUFOWT including multi-rotor-floater-mooring coupled effects. In the present study, the behavior of MUFOWT in time domain is described through the comparison of two load cases in maximum operational and survival conditions. A semi-submersible floater with four 2MW wind turbines, moored by eight mooring lines is selected as an example. The combination of irregular random waves, steady currents and dynamic turbulent winds are applied as environmental loads. As a result, the global motion and kinetic responses of the system are assessed in time domain. Kane’s dynamic theory is employed to formulate the global coupled dynamic equation of the whole system. The coupling terms are carefully considered to address the interactions among multiple turbines. This newly developed tool will be helpful in the future to evaluate the performance of MUFOWT under diverse environmental scenarios. In the present study, the aerodynamic interactions among multiple turbines including wake/array effect are not considered due to the complexity and uncertainty.


Author(s):  
Xutian Xue ◽  
Xiaoyong Liu ◽  
Nian-Zhong Chen ◽  
Xifeng Gao

Abstract This paper aims to perform a time-domain mooring fatigue analysis for a Spar-type floating offshore wind turbine operated in the South China Sea. Tension ranges of mooring lines are achieved from a hydrodynamic analysis where the effects of wind, wave and current are considered. A rainflow counting method is used to calculate the number of mooring tension cycles with corresponding ranges. The fatigue lives of mooring lines are then predicted by Palmgren-Miner’s rule according to T-N & S-N curves. A comparison of fatigue lives predicted by T-N & S-N curves-based approaches with/without considering safety factors is made. The results show that the T-N curves-based approach is more conservative than the S-N curves-based approach if safety factors are not considered in the two approaches, while the fatigue lives predicted by both approaches are in general comparable when the safety factors suggested by API and DNVGL are applied in the two approaches. A comparative study of three kinds of R4 grade studless mooring chains with different diameters (2.5-inch, 4-inch, 5-inch) is also conducted and the results show that the design with the 2.5-inch chain does not meet the fatigue requirements.


Author(s):  
Jiawen Li ◽  
Qiang Zhang ◽  
Jiali Du ◽  
Yichen Jiang

Abstract This paper presents a parametric design study of the mooring system for a floating offshore wind turbine. We selected the OC4 DeepCwind semisubmersible floating wind turbine as the reference structure. The design water depth was 50 m, which was the transition area between the shallow and deep waters. For the floating wind turbine working in this water area, the restoring forces and moments provided by the mooring lines were significantly affected by the heave motion amplitude of the platform. Thus, the mooring design for the wind turbine in this working depth was different from the deep-water catenary mooring system. In this study, the chosen design parameters were declination angle, fairlead position, mooring line length, environmental load direction, and mooring line number. We conducted fully coupled aero-hydro dynamic simulations of the floating wind turbine system in the time domain to investigate the influences of different mooring configurations on the platform motion and the mooring tension. We evaluated both survival and accidental conditions to analyze the mooring safety under typhoon and mooring fail conditions. On the basis of the simulation results, this study made several design recommendations for the mooring configuration for floating wind turbines in intermediate water depth applied in China.


Author(s):  
Yougang Tang ◽  
Yan Li ◽  
Peng Xie ◽  
Xiaoqi Qu ◽  
Bin Wang

Abstract Simulations are conducted in time domain to investigate the dynamic response of a SPAR-type floating offshore wind turbine under the scenarios with freak wave. Towards this end, a coupled aero-hydro numerical model is developed. The methodology includes a blade-element-momentum model for aerodynamics, a nonlinear model for hydrodynamics, a nonlinear restoring model of SPAR buoy, and a nonlinear algorithm for mooring cables. The OC3 Hywind SPAR-type FOWT is chosen as an example to study the dynamic response under the freak conditions, while the time series of freak wave is generated by the Random Frequency Components Selection Phase Modulation Method. The motions of platform, the tensions in the mooring lines and the power generation performance are documented in different cases. According to the simulations, it shows that the power coefficient of wind turbine decreased rapidly at the moment when freak wave acted on the floating structure.


Author(s):  
Anthony M. Viselli ◽  
Andrew J. Goupee ◽  
Habib J. Dagher ◽  
Christopher K. Allen

This paper presents an overview of the successful conclusion of 18 months of testing the first grid-connected floating offshore wind turbine prototype in the Americas. The prototype, called VolturnUS 1:8, was installed off Castine, Maine, USA. The prototype is a 1:8 scale prototype and serves to de-risk the deployment of a full-scale 6MW turbine. VolturnUS utilizes innovations in materials, construction, and deployment technologies such as a concrete semi-submersible hull and an advanced composite tower to reduce the costs of offshore wind. The prototype unit was designed following the American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) “Guide for Building and Classing Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Installations”. Froude scaling was used in designing the 1:8-scale VolturnUS prototype so that the motions of the prototype in the relatively protected site represent those of the full-scale unit in an open site farther offshore. During the past year, a comprehensive instrumentation package monitored key performance characteristics of the platform during operational, extreme, and survival storm conditions. Data collected include: wind speed, turbine power, rotor angular frequency, blade pitch, torque, acceleration; tower bending moment, 6 DOF accelerations at tower top and base, mooring line tensions, and wave elevation at the platform. During the past year the prototype has experienced many environments representative of scaled ABS design conditions including operational wind and sea-states, 50-year sea states and 500-year survival sea states. This large data set provides a unique view of a near full-scale floating wind turbine subjected to its prescribed environmental conditions. Inspections of the concrete hull following removal provided confirmation of material durability. Marine growth measurements provide data for future design efforts.


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