Comparison of Three Different TLPs for Wind Turbines by Tank Tests and Calculated Results

Author(s):  
F. Adam ◽  
T. Myland ◽  
F. Dahlhaus ◽  
J. Großmann

This paper will give a short overview of the path of development of the so called GICON® - Tension Leg Platform (TLP) for offshore wind turbines. The main part of the paper will provide a summary as well as insights from three different model basin tests. Furthermore, the comparison of a truss like structure (first concept) with a shell type structure (third concept) deduced from the measured results and also by comparison of the natural frequencies will be presented. Both structures were tested in wave tanks in a scale of 1:25. The results also include a focus on the overall dynamic behavior of the structure. In addition to the two 1:25 models, a 1:37 model was also tested at MARIN, utilizing the MARIN stock wind turbine. This model is also included in the comparison. Therefore the different scales are considered but the comparison is presented exclusively for wave loads as only the 1:37 model was tested under wind and wave conditions.

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 859
Author(s):  
Thanh-Dam Pham ◽  
Hyunkyoung Shin

Floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) have been installed in Europe and Japan with relatively modern technology. The installation of floating wind farms in deep water is recommended because the wind speed is stronger and more stable. The design of the FOWT must ensure it is able to withstand complex environmental conditions including wind, wave, current, and performance of the wind turbine. It needs simulation tools with fully integrated hydrodynamic-servo-elastic modeling capabilities for the floating offshore wind turbines. Most of the numerical simulation approaches consider only first-order hydrodynamic loads; however, the second-order hydrodynamic loads have an effect on a floating platform which is moored by a catenary mooring system. At the difference-frequencies of the incident wave components, the drift motion of a FOWT system is able to have large oscillation around its natural frequency. This paper presents the effects of second-order wave loads to the drift motion of a semi-submersible type. This work also aimed to validate the hydrodynamic model of Ulsan University (UOU) in-house codes through numerical simulations and model tests. The NREL FAST code was used for the fully coupled simulation, and in-house codes of UOU generates hydrodynamic coefficients as the input for the FAST code. The model test was performed in the water tank of UOU.


Author(s):  
Luigia Riefolo ◽  
Fernando del Jesus ◽  
Raúl Guanche García ◽  
Giuseppe Roberto Tomasicchio ◽  
Daniela Pantusa

The design methodology for mooring systems for a spar buoy wind turbine considers the influence of extreme events and wind/wave misalignments occurring in its lifetime. Therefore, the variety of wind and wave directions affects over the seakeeping and as a result the evaluation of the maxima loads acting on the spar-buoy wind turbine. In the present paper, the importance of wind/wave misalignments on the dynamic response of spar-type floating wind turbine [1] is investigated. Based on standards, International Electrotechnical Commission IEC and Det Norske Veritas DNV the design of position moorings should be carried out under extreme wind/wave loads, taking into account their misalignments with respect to the structure. In particular, DNV standard, in ‘Position mooring’ recommendations, specifies in the load cases definition, if site specific data is not available, to consider non-collinear environment to have wave towards the unit’s bow (0°) and wind 30° relative to the waves. In IEC standards, the misalignment of the wind and wave directions shall be considered to design offshore wind turbines and calculate the loads acting on the support structure. Ultimate Limit State (ULS) analyses of the OC3-Hywind spar buoy wind turbine are conducted through FAST code, a certified nonlinear aero-hydro-servo-elastic simulation tool by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL’s). This software was developed for use in the International Energy Agency (IEA) Offshore Code Comparison Collaborative (OC3) project, and supports NREL’s offshore 5-MW baseline turbine. In order to assess the effects of misaligned wind and wave, different wind directions are chosen, maintaining the wave loads perpendicular to the structure. Stochastic, full-fields, turbulence simulator Turbsim is used to simulate the 1-h turbulent wind field. The scope of the work is to investigate the effects of wind/wave misalignments on the station-keeping system of spar buoy wind turbine. Results are presented in terms of global maxima determined through mean up-crossing with moving average, which, then, are modelled by a Weibull distribution. Finally, extreme values are estimated depending on global maxima and fitted on Gumbel distribution. The Most Probable Maximum value of mooring line tensions is found to be influenced by the wind/wave misalignments. The present paper is organized as follows. Section ‘Introduction’, based on a literature study, gives useful information on the previous studies conducted on the wind/wave misalignments effects of floating offshore wind turbines. Section ‘Methodology’ describes the applied methodology and presents the spar buoy wind turbine, the used numerical model and the selected environmental conditions. Results and the corresponding discussion are given in Section ‘Results and discussion’ for each load case corresponding to the codirectional and misaligned wind and wave loads. Results are presented and discussed in time and frequency domains. Finally, in Section ‘Conclusion’ some conclusions are drawn.


Author(s):  
Tim Bunnik ◽  
Erik-Jan de Ridder

The effects of operational wave loads and wind loads on offshore mono pile wind turbines are well understood. For most sites, however, the water depth is such that breaking or near-breaking waves will occur causing impulsive excitation of the mono pile and consequently considerable stresses, displacements and accelerations in the monopile, tower and turbine. As has been shown in earlier, recent publications, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can be used to accurately analyze wave impacts on offshore wind turbines. However, it is not yet well suited to study the statistical variability of wave impact loads in long-duration sea states, and thus estimate the ULS and ALS loads for which a wind turbine has to be designed. An alternative, simplified approach, is the use of a Morison model in which the kinematics (water particle velocities and accelerations) from a nonlinear wave model are used. For long-crested waves the nonlinear wave model can be run in a 2D mode and is therefore relatively cheap. In this paper model tests for steep and breaking waves on an offshore wind turbine are compared with results from the Morison model. First, a deterministic comparison is made between the wave loads from the model tests and the simulation model (simulating the same 3-hour wave realization as in the basin), which turns out to be difficult because of differences between wave reflections in the wave basin (a physical beach) and the numerical wave model (absorbing boundary condition). Second, a statistical comparison is made by comparing with different wave realizations measured in the wave basin.


Author(s):  
Yasunori Nihei ◽  
Tomoki Ikoma ◽  
Minori Kozen ◽  
Fumiya Sato ◽  
Motohiko Murai ◽  
...  

In this paper, we will discuss about the designing process and the motion characteristics of the spar type offshore wind turbines. When considering a spar type structure for offshore wind turbines, it is important to take a lot of elements into consideration which have not yet been considered in the case of oil and gas platforms. In this research, we used the following standards to conduct our tests. The limit of the heel angle was 5 degrees when the wind turbines are generating in the rated state. When designing the substructure for this research we have decided to go with a substructure that operates in depth of 100m or more. Following the conditions above we have designed the spar type offshore wind turbine used for this research. In order to compare the simulated result we have created a scale model and performed tank tests under various conditions. Also we observed unexpected motion characteristics in certain mooring arrangement. So we will touch these subjects in this paper.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 574
Author(s):  
Rundong Yan ◽  
Sarah Dunnett

In order to improve the operation and maintenance (O&M) of offshore wind turbines, a new Petri net (PN)-based offshore wind turbine maintenance model is developed in this paper to simulate the O&M activities in an offshore wind farm. With the aid of the PN model developed, three new potential wind turbine maintenance strategies are studied. They are (1) carrying out periodic maintenance of the wind turbine components at different frequencies according to their specific reliability features; (2) conducting a full inspection of the entire wind turbine system following a major repair; and (3) equipping the wind turbine with a condition monitoring system (CMS) that has powerful fault detection capability. From the research results, it is found that periodic maintenance is essential, but in order to ensure that the turbine is operated economically, this maintenance needs to be carried out at an optimal frequency. Conducting a full inspection of the entire wind turbine system following a major repair enables efficient utilisation of the maintenance resources. If periodic maintenance is performed infrequently, this measure leads to less unexpected shutdowns, lower downtime, and lower maintenance costs. It has been shown that to install the wind turbine with a CMS is helpful to relieve the burden of periodic maintenance. Moreover, the higher the quality of the CMS, the more the downtime and maintenance costs can be reduced. However, the cost of the CMS needs to be considered, as a high cost may make the operation of the offshore wind turbine uneconomical.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 543
Author(s):  
Jiawen Li ◽  
Jingyu Bian ◽  
Yuxiang Ma ◽  
Yichen Jiang

A typhoon is a restrictive factor in the development of floating wind power in China. However, the influences of multistage typhoon wind and waves on offshore wind turbines have not yet been studied. Based on Typhoon Mangkhut, in this study, the characteristics of the motion response and structural loads of an offshore wind turbine are investigated during the travel process. For this purpose, a framework is established and verified for investigating the typhoon-induced effects of offshore wind turbines, including a multistage typhoon wave field and a coupled dynamic model of offshore wind turbines. On this basis, the motion response and structural loads of different stages are calculated and analyzed systematically. The results show that the maximum response does not exactly correspond to the maximum wave or wind stage. Considering only the maximum wave height or wind speed may underestimate the motion response during the traveling process of the typhoon, which has problems in guiding the anti-typhoon design of offshore wind turbines. In addition, the coupling motion between the floating foundation and turbine should be considered in the safety evaluation of the floating offshore wind turbine under typhoon conditions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 589
Author(s):  
Subhamoy Bhattacharya ◽  
Domenico Lombardi ◽  
Sadra Amani ◽  
Muhammad Aleem ◽  
Ganga Prakhya ◽  
...  

Offshore wind turbines are a complex, dynamically sensitive structure due to their irregular mass and stiffness distribution, and complexity of the loading conditions they need to withstand. There are other challenges in particular locations such as typhoons, hurricanes, earthquakes, sea-bed currents, and tsunami. Because offshore wind turbines have stringent Serviceability Limit State (SLS) requirements and need to be installed in variable and often complex ground conditions, their foundation design is challenging. Foundation design must be robust due to the enormous cost of retrofitting in a challenging environment should any problem occur during the design lifetime. Traditionally, engineers use conventional types of foundation systems, such as shallow gravity-based foundations (GBF), suction caissons, or slender piles or monopiles, based on prior experience with designing such foundations for the oil and gas industry. For offshore wind turbines, however, new types of foundations are being considered for which neither prior experience nor guidelines exist. One of the major challenges is to develop a method to de-risk the life cycle of offshore wind turbines in diverse metocean and geological conditions. The paper, therefore, has the following aims: (a) provide an overview of the complexities and the common SLS performance requirements for offshore wind turbine; (b) discuss the use of physical modelling for verification and validation of innovative design concepts, taking into account all possible angles to de-risk the project; and (c) provide examples of applications in scaled model tests.


Author(s):  
Bingbin Yu ◽  
Dale G. Karr ◽  
Huimin Song ◽  
Senu Sirnivas

Developing offshore wind energy has become more and more serious worldwide in recent years. Many of the promising offshore wind farm locations are in cold regions that may have ice cover during wintertime. The challenge of possible ice loads on offshore wind turbines raises the demand of modeling capacity of dynamic wind turbine response under the joint action of ice, wind, wave, and current. The simulation software FAST is an open source computer-aided engineering (CAE) package maintained by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. In this paper, a new module of FAST for assessing the dynamic response of offshore wind turbines subjected to ice forcing is presented. In the ice module, several models are presented which involve both prescribed forcing and coupled response. For conditions in which the ice forcing is essentially decoupled from the structural response, ice forces are established from existing models for brittle and ductile ice failure. For conditions in which the ice failure and the structural response are coupled, such as lock-in conditions, a rate-dependent ice model is described, which is developed in conjunction with a new modularization framework for FAST. In this paper, analytical ice mechanics models are presented that incorporate ice floe forcing, deformation, and failure. For lower speeds, forces slowly build until the ice strength is reached and ice fails resulting in a quasi-static condition. For intermediate speeds, the ice failure can be coupled with the structural response and resulting in coinciding periods of the ice failure and the structural response. A third regime occurs at high speeds of encounter in which brittle fracturing of the ice feature occurs in a random pattern, which results in a random vibration excitation of the structure. An example wind turbine response is simulated under ice loading of each of the presented models. This module adds to FAST the capabilities for analyzing the response of wind turbines subjected to forces resulting from ice impact on the turbine support structure. The conditions considered in this module are specifically addressed in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard 19906:2010 for arctic offshore structures design consideration. Special consideration of lock-in vibrations is required due to the detrimental effects of such response with regard to fatigue and foundation/soil response. The use of FAST for transient, time domain simulation with the new ice module is well suited for such analyses.


Author(s):  
Hasan Bagbanci ◽  
D. Karmakar ◽  
C. Guedes Soares

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.


Energies ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 579
Author(s):  
Taimoor Asim ◽  
Sheikh Zahidul Islam ◽  
Arman Hemmati ◽  
Muhammad Saif Ullah Khalid

Offshore wind turbines are becoming increasingly popular due to their higher wind energy harnessing capabilities and lower visual pollution. Researchers around the globe have been reporting significant scientific advancements in offshore wind turbines technology, addressing key issues, such as aerodynamic characteristics of turbine blades, dynamic response of the turbine, structural integrity of the turbine foundation, design of the mooring cables, ground scouring and cost modelling for commercial viability. These investigations range from component-level design and analysis to system-level response and optimization using a multitude of analytical, empirical and numerical techniques. With such wide-ranging studies available in the public domain, there is a need to carry out an extensive yet critical literature review on the recent advancements in offshore wind turbine technology. Offshore wind turbine blades’ aerodynamics and the structural integrity of offshore wind turbines are of particular importance, which can lead towards system’s optimal design and operation, leading to reduced maintenance costs. Thus, in this study, our focus is to highlight key knowledge gaps in the scientific investigations on offshore wind turbines’ aerodynamic and structural response. It is envisaged that this study will pave the way for future concentrated efforts in better understanding the complex behavior of these machines.


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