Model tests of a 10 MW semi-submersible floating wind turbine under waves and wind using hybrid method to integrate the rotor thrust and moments

This paper describes the results of a wave tank test campaign of a 1/49 scaled SATH 10MW INNWIND floating platform. The Software-in-the-Loop (SiL) hybrid method was used to include the wind turbine thrust and the in-plane rotor moments My – Mz. Experimental results are compared with a numerical model developed in OpenFAST of the floating wind turbine. The tank test campaign was carried out in the scaled model tested at the Deep Ocean Basin from the Lir National Ocean TF at Cork, Ireland. This floating substructure design was adapted by Saitec to support the 10MW INNWIND wind turbine within the ARCWIND project with the aim of withstanding the environmental conditions of the European Atlantic Area region. CENER provided the wind turbine controller specially designed for the SATH 10MW configuration. A description of the experimental set up, force actuator configuration and the numeric aerodynamic parameters are provided in this work. The most relevant experimental results under wind and wave loading are showed in time series and frequency domain. The influence of the submerged geometry variations in the pitch natural frequency is discussed. The paper shows the simulation of a case with rated wind speed, where the tilted geometry for the computation of the hydrostatic and hydrodynamic properties of the submerged substructure is considered. This case provides a better agreement of the pitch natural frequency with the experiments, than a equivalent simulation using the undisplaced geometry mesh for the computation of the hydrodynamic and hydrostatic properties.

Proposal of a Novel Mooring System Using Three-Bifurcated Mooring Lines for Spar-Type Off-Shore Wind Turbines

Floating wind turbine vibration controlling becomes more and more important with the increase in wind turbine size. Thus, a novel three-bifurcated mooring system is proposed for Spar-type floating wind turbines. Compared with the original mooring system using three mooring lines, three-bifurcated sub-mooring-lines are added into the novel mooring system. Specifically, each three-bifurcated sub-mooring-line is first connected to a Spar-type platform using three fairleads, then it is connected to the anchor using the main mooring line. Six fairleads are involved in the proposed mooring system, theoretically resulting in larger overturning and torsional stiffness. For further improvement, a clump mass is attached onto the main mooring lines of the proposed mooring system. The wind turbine surge, pitch, and yaw movements under regular and irregular waves are calculated to quantitatively examine the mooring system performances. A recommended configuration for the proposed mooring system is presented: the three-bifurcated sub-mooring-line and main mooring line lengths should be (0.0166, 0.0111, 0.0166) and 0.9723 times the total mooring line length in the traditional mooring system. The proposed mooring system can at most reduce the wind turbine surge movement 37.15% and 54.5% when under regular and irregular waves, respectively, and can at most reduce the yaw movement 30.1% and 40% when under regular and irregular waves, respectively.

Simulation study on pitch system of floating wind turbine

Due to the complex sea conditions, floating wind turbines produce unbalanced loads. Firstly, this paper will take NERL-5MW floating wind turbine as the model, and apply brainstorming algorithm (BSO) to the independent pitch system based on PID azimuth weight coefficient. Then, a joint simulation will be carried out in OpenFAST-Matlab/Simulink to study its impact on the load of floating wind turbine. Finally, the simulation results reveal that compared with the independent pitch system based on PID azimuth weight coefficient, the proposed method can reduce the load of the floating platform to a certain extent.

Analysis of Load Reduction of Floating Wind Turbines Using Passive Tuned Mass Dampers

An efficient method for restraining the large vibration displacements and loads of offshore floating wind turbines under harsh marine environment is proposed by putting tuned mass dampers in the cabin. A dynamics model for a barge-type offshore floating wind turbine with a fore–aft tuned mass damper is established based on Lagrange’s equations; the nonlinear least squares Leven berg–Marquardt algorithm is employed to identify the parameters of the wind turbine; different parameter optimization methods are adopted to optimize tuned mass damper parameters by considering the standard deviation of the tower top longitudinal displacement as the objective function. Aiming at five typical combined wind and wave load cases under normal running state of the wind turbine, the dynamic responses of the wind turbine with/without tuned mass damper are simulated and the suppression effect of the tuned mass damper is investigated over the wide range of load cases. The results show that when the wind turbine vibrates in the state of damped free vibration, the standard deviation of the tower top longitudinal displacement is decreased approximately 60% in 100 s by the optimized tuned mass damper with the optimum tuned mass damper mass ratio 1.8%. The standard deviation suppression rates of the longitudinal displacements and loads in the tower and blades increase with the tuned mass damper mass ratio when the wind turbine vibrates under the combined wind and wave load cases. When the mass ratio changes from 0.5% to 2%, the maximum suppression rates vary from 20% to 50% correspondingly, which effectively reduce vibration responses of the offshore floating wind turbine. The results of this article preliminarily verify the feasibilities of using a tuned mass damper for restraining vibration of the barge-type offshore floating wind turbine