On Short-Term Fatigue Analysis for Wind Turbine Tower of Two Semi-Submersible Wind Turbines Including Effect of Startup and Shutdown Processes

2020 ◽  
Vol 143 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenyu Luan ◽  
Torgeir Moan
Keyword(s):  
Fatigue Damage ◽  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Design Standards ◽  
Transient Load ◽  
Operational Conditions ◽  
Rule Approach

Abstract Fatigue limit state design check for offshore wind turbines is based on SN curves and the Palmgren–Miner rule approach and focuses normally on stationary processes for which startup and/or shutdown operations induced transient load processes are normally not accounted for. However, large databases of real-time measurements show that the shutdown and startup operations may appear in any operational conditions and the frequency of such operations could be considerable. Although design standards require fatigue design checks for the transient load processes induced by startup and shutdown operations, relevant publications addressing this issue are very limited in particular for floating wind turbines. This paper focuses on analyzing the importance of startup and shutdown induced transient load processes on fatigue damage in the tower of two MW-level horizontal axis semi-submersible wind turbines. The analysis is carried on by comparing short-term fatigue damage in several environmental conditions with and without the startup and shutdown induced transient load processes. It is found that, in many environmental conditions, startup and/or shutdown operations may make an increase in short-term fatigue damage by 10% to 100%, while in some situations, the fatigue damage may be increased by up to 200%. The importance of the transient load processes on long-term fatigue damage is related to the occurrence frequency of startup and shutdown events. Publicly available data indicate that the average time between two consecutive shutdown events might be less than 39 h. However, more data and analysis are needed regarding these issues.

On Short-Term Fatigue Analysis for Wind Turbine Tower of Two Semi-Submersible Wind Turbines Including Effect of Startup and Shutdown Processes

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chenyu Luan ◽  
Torgeir Moan
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Fatigue Damage ◽  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Environmental Condition ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Transient Load ◽  
Sea Bed ◽  
Rule Approach

Fatigue limit state design check based on S-N curve and Palmgren-Miner rule approach is required by design standards for floating wind turbines since floating wind turbines are subjected cyclically varying environmental loads. Fatigue damage over a given period could be considered as a summation of short-term fatigue damage of each stationary environmental condition multiplying by the number of occurrence of the environmental condition during the given period. In reality, environmental condition varies continuously. While fatigue damage due to transient load processes that are induced by startup and shutdown operations cannot be captured by this conventional approach. Large data bases of real-time measurements show shutdown and startup operations may appear in any operational conditions and the number of the operations could be considerable. Analysis for startup and shutdown operations induced fatigue damage is required by standards for offshore wind turbines. However, relevant publications addressing this issue are very limited in particular for floating wind turbines. In contrast to bottom fixed wind turbines, floating wind turbines have rigid-body motions in 6 d.o.f.s, while the floating wind turbine hulls are moored by mooring lines rather than directly mounted on sea bed or land. This paper focuses on shedding light on the importance of startup and shutdown induced transient load processes on fatigue damage in the tower of two MW-level horizontal axis semi-submersible wind turbines by comparing short-term fatigue damage in several environmental conditions with and without transient load processes induced by startup and shutdown of the wind turbines. In some situations, 4,600 seconds short-term fatigue damage may be dominated by the transient load process induced fatigue damage which may make the fatigue damage be increased by up to 300%, while in many cases, the fatigue damage may be increased by 10% to 100%. The importance of the transient load processes on long-term fatigue damage is related to occurrence frequency of startup and shutdown events and needs more analysis in future.

Hydrodynamic Modeling of Large-Diameter Bottom-Fixed Offshore Wind Turbines

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin E. Bachynski ◽  
Harald Ormberg
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Stokes Wave ◽  
Intermediate Water ◽  
Hydrodynamic Loads ◽  
Offshore Wind Turbines ◽  
Wave Kinematics

For shallow and intermediate water depths, large monopile foundations are considered to be promising with respect to the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of offshore wind turbines. In order to reduce the LCOE by structural optimization and de-risk the resulting designs, the hydrodynamic loads must be computed efficiently and accurately. Three efficient methods for computing hydrodynamic loads are considered here: Morison’s equation with 1) undisturbed linear wave kinematics or 2) undisturbed second order Stokes wave kinematics, or 3) the MacCamy-Fuchs model, which is able to account for diffraction in short waves. Two reference turbines are considered in a simplified range of environmental conditions. For fatigue limit state calculations, accounting for diffraction effects was found to generally increase the estimated lifetime of the structure, particularly the tower. The importance of diffraction depends on the environmental conditions and the structure. For the case study of the NREL 5 MW design, the effect could be up to 10 % for the tower base and 2 % for the monopile under the mudline. The inclusion of second order wave kinematics did not have a large effect on the fatigue calculations, but had a significant impact on the structural loads in ultimate limit state conditions. For the NREL 5 MW design, a 30 % increase in the maximum bending moment under the mudline could be attributed to the second order wave kinematics; a 7 % increase was seen for the DTU 10 MW design.

System Reliability for Offshore Wind Turbines: Fatigue Failure

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Márquez-Domínguez ◽  
J. D. Sørensen
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Wind Farms ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Design Standards ◽  
State Equations ◽  
Offshore Wind Farms ◽  
Offshore Wind Turbines ◽  
Cost Of Energy ◽  
Wake Effects

Deeper waters and harsher environments are the main factors that make the electricity generated by offshore wind turbines (OWTs) expensive due to high costs of the substructure, operation & maintenance and installation. The key goal of development is to decrease the cost of energy (CoE). In consequence, a rational treatment of uncertainties is done in order to assess the reliability of critical details in OWTs. Limit state equations are formulated for fatigue critical details which are not influenced by wake effects generated in offshore wind farms. Furthermore, typical bi-linear S-N curves are considered for reliability verification according to international design standards of OWTs. System effects become important for each substructure with many potential fatigue hot spots. Therefore, in this paper a framework for system effects is presented. This information can be e.g. no detection of cracks in inspections or measurements from condition monitoring systems. Finally, an example is established to illustrate the practical application of this framework for jacket type wind turbine substructure considering system effects.

Wind-Wave Misalignment Effects on Floating Wind Turbines: Motions and Tower Load Effects

2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin E. Bachynski ◽  
Marit I. Kvittem ◽  
Chenyu Luan ◽  
Torgeir Moan
Keyword(s):  
Fatigue Damage ◽  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Dynamic Responses ◽  
Wave Direction ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Operational Conditions ◽  
First Order ◽  
Wind Speeds ◽  
Load Effects ◽  
Low Wind Speeds

The dynamic responses of a spar, tension leg platform (TLP), and two semisubmersible floating wind turbines (FWTs) in selected misaligned wind and wave conditions are investigated using numerical simulation with an aero-hydro-servo-elastic computational tool. For a range of representative operational conditions, the platform motions and short-term fatigue damage in the tower base and tower top are examined. Although some misalignment conditions result in increased motions both parallel and perpendicular to the wave direction, aligned wind and waves cause the largest short-term tower base fatigue damage for the studied platforms and conditions. Several factors which lead to larger fatigue damage for certain platforms in particular conditions are identified, such as tower resonance due to the 3p blade passing frequency in low wind speeds; surge and pitch motions, particularly in the wave frequency range; and the variations in first-order hydrodynamic loads due to wave direction. A semisubmersible platform with large displacement suffers the least damage at the base of the tower.

Evaluating the Coupledness of the Aerodynamics and Hydrodynamics on the Estimation of Fatigue Damage Equivalent Load for a Floating Offshore Wind Platform

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Kanner ◽  
Bingbin Yu
Keyword(s):  
Fatigue Life ◽  
Fatigue Damage ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Coupled Analysis ◽  
Offshore Wind Turbine ◽  
Wave Conditions ◽  
Equivalent Load ◽  
The Waves

In this research, the estimation of the fatigue life of a semi-submersible floating offshore wind platform is considered. In order to accurately estimate the fatigue life of a platform, coupled aerodynamic-hydrodynamic simulations are performed to obtain dynamic stress values. The simulations are performed at a multitude of representative environmental states, or “bins,” which can mimic the conditions the structure may endure at a given site, per ABS Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Installation guidelines. To accurately represent the variety of wind and wave conditions, the number of environmental states can be of the order of 103. Unlike other offshore structures, both the wind and wave conditions must be accounted for, which are generally considered independent parameters, drastically increasing the number of states. The stress timeseries from these simulations can be used to estimate the damage at a particular location on the structure by using commonly accepted methods, such as the rainflow counting algorithm. The damage due to either the winds or the waves can be estimated by using a frequency decomposition of the stress timeseries. In this paper, a similar decoupled approach is used to attempt to recover the damages induced from these coupled simulations. Although it is well-known that a coupled, aero-hydro analysis is necessary in order to accurately simulate the nonlinear rigid-body motions of the platform, it is less clear if the same statement could be made about the fatigue properties of the platform. In one approach, the fatigue damage equivalent load is calculated independently from both scatter diagrams of the waves and a rose diagram of the wind. De-coupled simulations are performed to estimate the response at an all-encompassing range of environmental conditions. A database of responses based on these environmental conditions is constructed. The likelihood of occurrence at a case-study site is used to compare the damage equivalent from the coupled simulations. The OC5 platform in the Borssele wind farm zone is used as a case-study and the damage equivalent load from the de-coupled methods are compared to those from the coupled analysis in order to assess these methodologies.

Comparison of Spar and Semisubmersible Floater Concepts of Offshore Wind Turbines Using Long-Term Analysis

2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Hasan Bagbanci ◽  
D. Karmakar ◽  
C. Guedes Soares
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbine ◽  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Transfer Functions ◽  
Probability Distributions ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Offshore Wind Turbines ◽  
Floating Wind Turbine ◽  
Offshore Floating Wind Turbine

The long-term probability distributions of a spar-type and a semisubmersible-type offshore floating wind turbine response are calculated for surge, heave, and pitch motions along with the side-to-side, fore–aft, and yaw tower base bending moments. The transfer functions for surge, heave, and pitch motions for both spar-type and semisubmersible-type floaters are obtained using the fast code and the results are also compared with the results obtained in an experimental study. The long-term predictions of the most probable maximum values of motion amplitudes are used for design purposes, so as to guarantee the safety of the floating wind turbines against overturning in high waves and wind speed. The long-term distribution is carried out using North Atlantic wave data and the short-term floating wind turbine responses are represented using Rayleigh distributions. The transfer functions are used in the procedure to calculate the variances of the short-term responses. The results obtained for both spar-type and semisubmersible-type offshore floating wind turbine are compared, and the study will be helpful in the assessments of the long-term availability and economic performance of the spar-type and semisubmersible-type offshore floating wind turbine.

Simulation Requirements and Relevant Load Conditions in the Design of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ricardo Faerron Guzmán ◽  
Kolja Müller ◽  
Luca Vita ◽  
Po Wen Cheng
Keyword(s):  
Wind Turbines ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Power Production ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Ultimate Limit State ◽  
Offshore Wind Turbines ◽  
Floating Offshore Wind Turbines ◽  
Simulation Time ◽  
Number Of Seeds ◽  
Load Conditions

Aligned with work performed in deliverable D7.7 of the H2020 project LIFES50+, this study supports the definition of the numerical setup in the design of floating offshore wind turbines. The results of extensive simulation studies are presented, which focus particularly on determining the requirements for the load simulations in the design process. The analysis focusses on the cases of: (1) fatigue during power production and (2) ultimate loads during power production and severe sea state. For the fatigue load case, sensitivity study is performed in order to determine relevant load conditions and the expected impact of a variation in the environmental loading. Additionally, focus is put on the requirements regarding the run-in time, number of seeds and the simulation length for both fatigue and ultimate limit state (FLS, ULS) analysis. Another topic addressed is the benefit of using an increased number of seeds rather than extending the simulation time of single seeds, when a given total simulation time is required as described in the guidelines. The run-in time may be shortened when using predetermined steady states as initial conditions. Requirements for the steady state simulations are also determined and presented.

Large-Scale Resonant Fatigue Testing of Welded Tubular X-Joints for Offshore Jacket Foundations

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeroen Van Wittenberghe ◽  
Philippe Thibaux ◽  
Maarten Van Poucke
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Fatigue Testing ◽  
Water Pressure ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Fatigue Tests ◽  
Offshore Wind ◽  
Design Standards ◽  
Initiation Phase ◽  
Out Of Plane ◽  
Jacket Structures

Abstract Offshore wind turbines are being installed in deeper water and with more powerful generators resulting in more severe loading conditions on its foundations such as jacket structures. Because the main loading is due to wind and currents, the dominant design limit state is fatigue. The fatigue performance of the tubular joints used in jacket structures has been assessed several decades ago based on test results with limited component dimensions (diameter and wall thickness). In addition, improvements of welding methods and evolution of steel grades are not considered in the current design standards. To provide experimental fatigue-life data on large-scale structures a test program has been carried out on 4 welded tubular X-joints. Each X-joint consists of two horizontal braces with a diameter of 711 mm welded to a central vertical tubular member with 806 mm diameter. The X-joint has a total length of 7.5 m and has two identical welds that are fatigue tested. The fatigue tests are carried out on an innovative resonant bending fatigue test rig that allows to load the specimen in in- and out-of-plane direction at a different amplitude to obtain an even stress distribution over the circumference of the welds. The tests are carried out at a speed close to the resonance frequency of the X-joint. During the test, hotspot strains are measured using strain gauges and a limited amount of water pressure is used to detect through-thickness cracks. The tests are carried out in two phases. During the crack initiation phase, the sample is loaded in both the in- and out-of-plane mode. Once cracks are detected, the test is continued in the crack propagation phase with loading in the plane where cracks had been initiated until through-thickness cracking appeared. During this phase the beach marking technique has been used to mark the shape of the fracture surface at different moments during the fatigue tests. The testing program is part of the RFCS project JABACO that aims to reduce offshore wind cost by incrementing prefabrication of the jacket substructure.

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