Mooring Analysis of a Dual-Spar Floating Wind Farm with a Shared Line

Author(s):  
Guodong Liang ◽  
Zhiyu Jiang ◽  
Karl O. Merz

Abstract Wind farms with shared mooring lines have the potential to reduce mooring costs. However, such wind farms may encounter complex system dynamics because adjacent wind turbines are coupled. This paper presents an analysis of the shared mooring system with a focus on the system natural periods. We first apply Irvine's method to model both the shared line and the two-segment single lines. The response surface method is proposed to replace iterations of the catenary equations of the single lines, and a realistic single line design is presented for OC3 Hywind. Then, system linearization and eigenvalue analysis are performed for the wind farm consisting of two spar floating wind turbines, one shared line, and four single lines. The obtained natural periods and natural modes are verified by numerical free decay tests. Finally, a sensitivity study is carried out to investigate the influence of mooring properties. It is found that the shared line has a significant influence on the natural periods in the surge and sway modes. The natural periods in the surge and sway modes are also most sensitive to the mooring property variations. Two sway eigenmodes are identified, and the lower sway natural period varies between 23 s and 88 s in the sensitivity study. The present analysis method can be used to identify critical natural periods at the preliminary design stage of shared mooring systems.

Author(s):  
Guodong Liang ◽  
Karl Merz ◽  
Zhiyu Jiang

Abstract As floating wind turbines become more technically mature, the development of floating wind farms is under way. Cost-effective solutions are desired to reduce the mooring costs. The concept of a shared mooring system has been proposed for this purpose. This work presents a method to model the shared mooring system for a dual-spar configuration. By applying the theory in elastic catenary of cable structures, a shared line can be modelled. To verify the method, a dual-spar system is modelled in a multibody simulation tool, in which two floating wind turbines are connected via a shared line. Static analyses are performed by using the present method and the simulation tool. Further, a sensitivity study is applied to the shared line properties. Different mooring line properties have been investigated. The influence of the shared line properties is shown on the mooring restoring properties of the dual-spar system. The present modeling method can be applied in the preliminary design stage of shared mooring systems.


Author(s):  
Bryan E. Kaiser ◽  
Svetlana V. Poroseva ◽  
Michael A. Snider ◽  
Rob O. Hovsapian ◽  
Erick Johnson

A relatively high free stream wind velocity is required for conventional horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWTs) to generate power. This requirement significantly limits the area of land for viable onshore wind farm locations. To expand a potential for wind power generation and an area suitable for onshore wind farms, new wind turbine designs capable of wind energy harvesting at low wind speeds are currently in development. The aerodynamic characteristics of such wind turbines are notably different from industrial standards. The optimal wind farm layout for such turbines is also unknown. Accurate and reliable simulations of a flow around and behind a new wind turbine design should be conducted prior constructing a wind farm to determine optimal spacing of turbines on the farm. However, computations are expensive even for a flow around a single turbine. The goal of the current study is to determine a set of simulation parameters that allows one to conduct accurate and reliable simulations at a reasonable cost of computations. For this purpose, a sensitivity study on how the parameters variation influences the results of simulations is conducted. Specifically, the impact of a grid refinement, grid stretching, grid cell shape, and a choice of a turbulent model on the results of simulation of a flow around a mid-sized Rim Driven Wind Turbine (U.S. Patent 7399162) and in its near wake is analyzed. This wind turbine design was developed by Keuka Energy LLC. Since industry relies on commercial software for conducting flow simulations, STAR-CCM+ software [1] was used in our study. A choice of a turbulence model was made based on the results from our previous sensitivity study of flow simulations over a rotating disk [2].


Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad Al-Addous ◽  
Mustafa Jaradat ◽  
Aiman Albatayneh ◽  
Johannes Wellmann ◽  
Sahil Al Hmidan

Securing energy supply and diversifying the energy sources is one of the main goals of energy strategy for most countries. Due to climate change, wind energy is becoming increasingly important as a method of CO2-free energy generation. In this paper, a wind farm with five turbines located in Jerash, a city in northern Jordan, has been designed and analyzed. Optimization of wind farms is an important factor in the design stage to minimize the cost of wind energy to become more competitive and economically attractive. The analyses have been carried out using the WindFarm software to examine the significance of wind turbines’ layouts (M, straight and arch shapes) and spacing on the final energy yield. In this research, arranging the turbines facing the main wind direction with five times rotor diameter distance between each turbine has been simulated, and has resulted in 22.75, 22.87 and 21.997 GWh/year for the M shape, Straight line and Arch shape, respectively. Whereas, reducing the distance between turbines to 2.5 times of the rotor diameter (D) resulted in a reduction of the wind farm energy yield to 22.68, 21.498 and 21.5463 GWh/year for the M shape, Straight line and Arch shape, respectively. The energetic efficiency gain for the optimized wind turbines compared to the modeled layouts regarding the distances between the wind turbines. The energetic efficiency gain has been in the range between 8.9% for 5D (rotor diameter) straight layout to 15.9% for 2.5D straight layout.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul McEvoy ◽  
Seojin Kim ◽  
Malak Haynes

Abstract Mooring of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines (FOWT) in shallow water sites (30–80m) is challenging. These sites account for a significant proportion of the nearer to shore potential wind farm locations, and are desirable as they are closer to existing infrastructure and easier to access. Mooring large floating structures in very shallow waters however results in very long heavy mooring lines designed to minimize platform surge and protect the electrical cables. This paper presents an innovative Fibre Spring Mooring (FSM) solution which combines a high modulus, non-stretch, lightweight rope with a compliant nonlinear polymer spring offering a complete semi-taut mooring system which can be connected directly between the platform and the seabed. The paper will present Orcaflex simulation results of a 12MW barge type FOWT platform, moored using a semi-taut FSM mooring at three chosen North Sea locations close to existing wind farms, of 30m, 40m and 50m water depths. Different FSM configurations, with different line lengths, footprint, and ratio of fibre to spring are considered.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 693
Author(s):  
Anna Dóra Sæþórsdóttir ◽  
Margrét Wendt ◽  
Edita Tverijonaite

The interest in harnessing wind energy keeps increasing globally. Iceland is considering building its first wind farms, but its landscape and nature are not only a resource for renewable energy production; they are also the main attraction for tourists. As wind turbines affect how the landscape is perceived and experienced, it is foreseeable that the construction of wind farms in Iceland will create land use conflicts between the energy sector and the tourism industry. This study sheds light on the impacts of wind farms on nature-based tourism as perceived by the tourism industry. Based on 47 semi-structured interviews with tourism service providers, it revealed that the impacts were perceived as mostly negative, since wind farms decrease the quality of the natural landscape. Furthermore, the study identified that the tourism industry considered the following as key factors for selecting suitable wind farm sites: the visibility of wind turbines, the number of tourists and tourist attractions in the area, the area’s degree of naturalness and the local need for energy. The research highlights the importance of analysing the various stakeholders’ opinions with the aim of mitigating land use conflicts and socioeconomic issues related to wind energy development.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0309524X2199245
Author(s):  
Kawtar Lamhour ◽  
Abdeslam Tizliouine

The wind industry is trying to find tools to accurately predict and know the reliability and availability of newly installed wind turbines. Failure modes, effects and criticality analysis (FMECA) is a technique used to determine critical subsystems, causes and consequences of wind turbines. FMECA has been widely used by manufacturers of wind turbine assemblies to analyze, evaluate and prioritize potential/known failure modes. However, its actual implementation in wind farms has some limitations. This paper aims to determine the most critical subsystems, causes and consequences of the wind turbines of the Moroccan wind farm of Amougdoul during the years 2010–2019 by applying the maintenance model (FMECA), which is an analysis of failure modes, effects and criticality based on a history of failure modes occurred by the SCADA system and proposing solutions and recommendations.


SIMULATION ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 003754972110286
Author(s):  
Eduardo Pérez

Wind turbines experience stochastic loading due to seasonal variations in wind speed and direction. These harsh operational conditions lead to failures of wind turbines, which are difficult to predict. Consequently, it is challenging to schedule maintenance actions that will avoid failures. In this article, a simulation-driven online maintenance scheduling algorithm for wind farm operational planning is derived. Online scheduling is a suitable framework for this problem since it integrates data that evolve over time into the maintenance scheduling decisions. The computational study presented in this article compares the performance of the simulation-driven online scheduling algorithm against two benchmark algorithms commonly used in practice: scheduled maintenance and condition-based monitoring maintenance. An existing discrete event system specification simulation model was used to test and study the benefits of the proposed algorithm. The computational study demonstrates the importance of avoiding over-simplistic assumptions when making maintenance decisions for wind farms. For instance, most literature assumes maintenance lead times are constant. The computational results show that allowing lead times to be adjusted in an online fashion improves the performance of wind farm operations in terms of the number of turbine failures, availability capacity, and power generation.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (14) ◽  
pp. 4291
Author(s):  
Paxis Marques João Roque ◽  
Shyama Pada Chowdhury ◽  
Zhongjie Huan

District of Namaacha in Maputo Province of Mozambique presents a high wind potential, with an average wind speed of around 7.5 m/s and huge open fields that are favourable to the installation of wind farms. However, in order to make better use of the wind potential, it is necessary to evaluate the operating conditions of the turbines and guide the independent power producers (IPPs) on how to efficiently use wind power. The investigation of the wind farm operating conditions is justified by the fact that the implementation of wind power systems is quite expensive, and therefore, it is imperative to find alternatives to reduce power losses and improve energy production. Taking into account the power needs in Mozambique, this project applied hybrid optimisation of multiple energy resources (HOMER) to size the capacity of the wind farm and the number of turbines that guarantee an adequate supply of power. Moreover, considering the topographic conditions of the site and the operational parameters of the turbines, the system advisor model (SAM) was applied to evaluate the performance of the Vestas V82-1.65 horizontal axis turbines and the system’s power output as a result of the wake effect. For any wind farm, it is evident that wind turbines’ wake effects significantly reduce the performance of wind farms. The paper seeks to design and examine the proper layout for practical placements of wind generators. Firstly, a survey on the Namaacha’s electricity demand was carried out in order to obtain the district’s daily load profile required to size the wind farm’s capacity. Secondly, with the previous knowledge that the operation of wind farms is affected by wake losses, different wake effect models applied by SAM were examined and the Eddy–Viscosity model was selected to perform the analysis. Three distinct layouts result from SAM optimisation, and the best one is recommended for wind turbines installation for maximising wind to energy generation. Although it is understood that the wake effect occurs on any wind farm, it is observed that wake losses can be minimised through the proper design of the wind generators’ placement layout. Therefore, any wind farm project should, from its layout, examine the optimal wind farm arrangement, which will depend on the wind speed, wind direction, turbine hub height, and other topographical characteristics of the area. In that context, considering the topographic and climate features of Mozambique, the study brings novelty in the way wind farms should be placed in the district and wake losses minimised. The study is based on a real assumption that the project can be implemented in the district, and thus, considering the wind farm’s capacity, the district’s energy needs could be met. The optimal transversal and longitudinal distances between turbines recommended are 8Do and 10Do, respectively, arranged according to layout 1, with wake losses of about 1.7%, land utilisation of about 6.46 Km2, and power output estimated at 71.844 GWh per year.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 20-25
Author(s):  
Alexey Bogatyrev

Wind turbines and wind farms can be connected to the major electricity distribution system. This paper presents the research results on synchronization of wind farm power supply into the utility grid depending on parameters of the grid at the moment. Measurement time gets synchronized with the external time signal delivered from a navigating system like GLONASS. This can help eliminate antiphase operation of individual wind turbines. Connection diagrams and the whole methodology presented in this paper aim to make wind farm power supply into the grid more effective and loss-eliminating.


2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (6) ◽  
pp. 547-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fa Wang ◽  
Mario Garcia-Sanz

The power generation of a wind farm depends on the efficiency of the individual wind turbines of the farm. In large wind farms, wind turbines usually affect each other aerodynamically at some specific wind directions. Previous studies suggest that a way to maximize the power generation of these wind farms is to reduce the generation of the first rows wind turbines to allow the next rows to generate more power (coordinated case). Yet, other studies indicate that the maximum generation of the wind farm is reached when every wind turbine works at its individual maximum power coefficient CPmax (individual case). This article studies this paradigm and proposes a practical method to evaluate when the wind farm needs to be controlled according to the individual or the coordinated case. The discussion is based on basic principles, numerical computations, and wind tunnel experiments.


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