Mean Wave Drift Forces on a Barge-Type Floating Wind Turbine Platform with Moonpools

Barge-type platforms with moonpools are a promising type of foundation for floating offshore wind turbines due to their good seakeeping performance. In this paper, the mean wave drift force on a barge-type vertical-axis floating wind turbine with multiple moonpools was investigated through physical model testing and numerical calculations using WAMIT. The focus was on the characteristics of mean drift load and its optimization potential. The present numerical results indicated that the application of moonpools was useful in reducing horizontal mean drift force at specific frequencies, and the reason was ascribed to the significant radiation effect of the resonant water oscillations in moonpools. The observed reduction effect on mean drift force was shown to be dependent on the viscous damping of moonpool resonance. The experimental results showed that the maximum response of the mean sway drift force was reduced by the gyroscopic effect of rotations of the vertical-axis wind turbine, and this reduction effect became stronger as the rotating speed of the wind turbine increased, but was weakened as wave amplitude increased. The comparisons between experimental data and potential flow predictions indicated that viscous effects should be taken into account to reasonably estimate the mean wave drift forces on barge-type floating wind turbines.

Development of Enhanced Two-Time-Scale Model for Simulation of Ship Maneuvering in Ocean Waves

In this study, a modified two-time-scale model is proposed to overcome the limitations of the existing maneuvering analysis model. To this end, not only wave conditions but also all directions of ship operation velocities are considered in estimating wave drift force and moment. Subsequently, the increment of the drift force and moment induced by steady drift and yaw motion of a ship is imposed up to the first derivative of Taylor series expansion. By introducing this bilinear model, the burden of the drift force computation is reduced so that a more realistic and efficient seakeeping-maneuvering coupling analysis can be performed. A turning circle simulation in a regular short wave is carried out using the modified two-time-scale model. Then, the performance is validated by comparing its results with the direct coupling model. Moreover, quantitative improvement of the present numerical scheme and the influence of the operation velocities on ship maneuvering performance are discussed.

Mean Wave Drift Force on a Barge-Type Floating Wind Turbine With Moonpools

The barge-type foundation with moonpool(s) is a promising type of platform for floating offshore wind turbines, since the moonpool(s) could improve the hydrodynamic performance at particular frequencies and reduce the costs of construction. In this paper, the horizontal mean drift force and yaw drift moment of a barge-type platform with four moonpools are numerically and experimentally investigated. Physical model tests are carried out in a wave tank, where a 2MW vertical-axis wind turbine is modelled in the 1:100 scale. By varying the rotating speed of the turbine and the mass of the blades, the gyroscopic effects due to turbine rotations on the mean drift forces are experimentally examined. The wave diffraction and radiation code WAMIT is used to carry out numerical analysis of wave drift force and moment. The experimental results indicate that the influence of the rotations of a vertical-axis wind turbine on the sway drift force is generally not very significant. The predictions by WAMIT are in reasonable agreement with the measured data. Numerical results demonstrate that the horizontal mean drift force and yaw drift moment at certain frequencies could be reduced by moonpool(s).

Experimental and Numerical Analysis of Wave Drift Force on KVLCC2 Moving in Oblique Waves

In this study, experimental and numerical methods were applied to estimate surge and sway wave drift forces and yaw drift moment acting on KVLCC2, advancing in oblique wave. An experiment was carried out in the ocean engineering basin of the Korea Research Institute of Ships and Ocean Engineering (KRISO). A series of regular wave tests under various heading conditions were conducted to investigate ship motion responses and wave drift forces. A Rankine panel method based on potential flow was adopted in the numerical analysis, and the direct pressure integration method that integrates second-order pressure on the hull surface was applied to compute wave drift force. Through this study, validation data of wave drift force acting on KVLCC2 was established, and the computation capability of the potential-based numerical method was systematically analyzed.

Effect of Skeg on the Wave Drift Force and Directional Stability of a Barge Using Computational Fluid Dynamics

To accurately estimate the navigation safety of a barge in still water and waves, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was used to calculate the hydrodynamic force on the barge and simulate the flow field to comprehensively study the effect of skeg for wave drift force and directional stability of the barge. With respect to the wave drift force, the steady surge force and steady sway force are found to decrease due to the skeg effect in both short and long wavelength regions. The overall steady yaw moment tends to be reduced by the skeg. As the drift angle increased, the sway force and yaw moment also increased. The changing trend in the sway force varied with the angular velocity, depending on the installation of the skeg, and it was noted that the yaw moment value significantly increased because of the skeg. Owing to the effect of the skeg installed on the barge, the yaw damping lever became larger, while the sway damping lever became smaller regardless of waves. It was confirmed that the directional stability was improved both in still water and head waves.