scholarly journals Influence of Clumps-Weighted Moorings on a Spar Buoy Offshore Wind Turbine

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 6407
Author(s):  
Niccolo Bruschi ◽  
Giulio Ferri ◽  
Enzo Marino ◽  
Claudio Borri

The spar buoy platform for offshore wind turbines is the most utilized type and the OC3 Hywind system design is largely used in research. This system is usually moored with three catenary cables with 120° between each other. Adding clump weights to the mooring lines has an influence on the platform response and on the mooring line tension. However, the optimal choice for their position and weight is still an open issue, especially considering the multitude of sea states the platform can be exposed to. In this study, therefore, an analysis on the influence of two such variables on the platform response and on the mooring line tension is presented. FAST by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is used to perform time domain simulations and Response Amplitude Operators are adopted as the main indicators of the clump weights effects. Results show that the clump weight mass is not as influential as the position, which turns out to be optimal, especially for the Surge degree of freedom, when closest to the platform.

Author(s):  
Yu Wang ◽  
Hamn-Ching Chen ◽  
Guilherme Vaz ◽  
Simon Mewes

Abstract Utilization of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) codes to perform hydrodynamic analysis of Floating Offshore Wind Turbines (FOWTs) is increasing recently. However, verification studies of the simulations that quantifying numerical uncertainties and permitting a detailed validation in a next phase is often disregarded. In this work, a verification study of CFD simulations of a semi-submersible FOWT design under regular waves is performed. To accomplish this goal, Response Amplitude Operators (RAOs) are derived from the computational results of the heave, surge and pitch motions. Four grids with different grid sizes with a constant refinement ratio are generated for verification of spatial convergence. Three different time increments are paired with each grid for verification of temporal convergence. The verification study is performed by estimation of the numerical errors and uncertainties using procedures proposed by Eca and Hoekstra [1].


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (24) ◽  
pp. 11665
Author(s):  
Shi Liu ◽  
Yi Yang ◽  
Chao Wang ◽  
Yuangang Tu

Spar-type floating offshore wind turbines commonly vibrate excessively when under the coupling impact of wind and wave. The wind turbine vibration can be controlled by developing its mooring system. Thus, this study proposes a novel mooring system for the spar-type floating offshore wind turbine. The proposed mooring system has six mooring lines, which are divided into three groups, with two mooring lines in the same group being connected to the same fairlead. Subsequently, the effects of the included angle between the two mooring lines on the mooring-system’s performance are investigated. Then, these six mooring lines are connected to six independent fairleads for comparison. FAST is utilized to calculate wind turbine dynamic response. Wind turbine surge, pitch, and yaw movements are presented and analyzed in time and frequency domains to quantitatively evaluate the performances of the proposed mooring systems. Compared with the mooring system with six fairleads, the mooring system with three fairleads performed better. When the included angle was 40°, surge, pitch, and yaw movement amplitudes of the wind turbine reduced by 39.51%, 6.8%, and 12.34%, respectively, when under regular waves; they reduced by 56.08%, 25.00%, and 47.5%, respectively, when under irregular waves. Thus, the mooring system with three fairleads and 40° included angle is recommended.


Author(s):  
Wystan Carswell ◽  
Jörgen Johansson ◽  
Finn Løvholt ◽  
Sanjay R. Arwade ◽  
Don J. DeGroot

Fatigue is often a design driver for large (e.g. 5–10 MW) offshore wind turbines (OWTs), necessitating a thorough examination of damping sources: aerodynamic, hydrodynamic, structural, and soil. Of these sources, soil damping has been least considered by researchers with respect to OWTs. Aeroelastic programs, such as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) code FAST, are typically used for time history analysis of aerodynamic and hydrodynamic loads experienced by OWTs. To take into account foundation flexibility while minimizing computational expense, reduced-order foundation models such as the mudline stiffness matrix are often used. Mudline stiffness and damping matrices are derived here for the NREL 5MW reference turbine. By recompiling FAST with mudline stiffness and damping matrices, the contribution of soil damping to OWT dynamic behavior is then quantified by comparing time history analysis results including and excluding soil damping.


2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
D Cevasco ◽  
M Collu ◽  
CM Rizzo ◽  
M Hall

Despite several potential advantages, relatively few studies and design support tools have been developed for floating vertical axis wind turbines. Due to the substantial aerodynamics differences, the analyses of vertical axis wind turbine on floating structures cannot be easily extended from what have been already done for horizontal axis wind turbines. Therefore, the main aim of the present work is to compare the dynamic response of the floating offshore wind turbine system adopting two different mooring dynamics approaches. Two versions of the in-house aero-hydro-mooring coupled model of dynamics for floating vertical axis wind turbine (FloVAWT) have been used, employing a mooring quasi-static model, which solves the equations using an energetic approach, and a modified version of floating vertical axis wind turbine, which instead couples with the lumped mass mooring line model MoorDyn. The results, in terms of mooring line tension, fatigue and response in frequency have been obtained and analysed, based on a 5 MW Darrieus type rotor supported by the OC4-DeepCwind semisubmersible.


Author(s):  
Thomas Zambrano ◽  
Tyler MacCready ◽  
Taras Kiceniuk ◽  
Dominique G. Roddier ◽  
Christian A. Cermelli

A Fourier spectrum based model of Gulf of Mexico storm conditions is applied to a 6 degree of freedom analytic simulation of a moored, floating offshore structure fitted with three rotary wind turbines. The resulting heave, surge, and sway motions are calculated using a Newtonian Runge-Kutta method. The angular motions of pitch, roll, and yaw are also calculated in this time-domain progression. The forces due to wind, waves, and mooring line tension are predicted as a function of time over a 4000 second interval. The WAMIT program is used to develop the wave forces on the platform. A constant force coefficient is used to estimate wind turbine loads. A TIMEFLOAT computer code calculates the motion of the system based on the various forces on the structure and the system’s inertia.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (6) ◽  
pp. 1075 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenqing Liu ◽  
Yuangang Tu ◽  
Wei Wang ◽  
Guowei Qian

The International Energy Agency (IEA), under the auspices of their Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration (OC3) initiative, has completed high-level design OC-3 Hywind system. In this system the wind turbine is supported by a spar buoy platform, showing good wave-resistance performance. However, there are still large values in the motion of surge degree of freedom (DOF). Addition of clump masses on the mooring lines is an effective way of reducing the surge motion. However, the optimization of the locations where the clump masses are added is still not clear. In this study, therefore, an in-house developed code is verified by comparing the results of the original OC3 model with those by FAST. The improvement of the performance of this modified platform as a function of the location of the clump masses has been examined under three regular waves and three irregular waves. In the findings of these examination, it was apparent that attaching clump masses with only one-tenth of the mass of the total mooring-line effectively reduces the wave-induced response. Moreover, there is an obvious improvement as the depth of the location where the clump masses mounted is increased.


2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinsong Liu ◽  
Lance Manuel

As offshore wind turbines supported on floating platforms extend to deep waters, the various effects involved in the dynamics, especially those resulting from the influence of moorings, become significant when predicting the overall integrated system response. The combined influence of waves and wind affect motions of the structure and induce tensile forces in mooring lines. The investigation of the system response under misaligned wind-wave conditions and the selection of appropriate mooring systems to minimize the turbine, tower, and mooring system loads is the subject of this study. We estimate the 50-year return response of a semisubmersible platform supporting a 13.2 MW wind turbine as well as mooring line forces when the system is exposed to four different wave headings with various environmental conditions (wind speeds and wave heights). Three different mooring system patterns are presented that include 3 or 6 mooring lines with different interline angles. Performance comparisons of the integrated systems may be used to define an optimal system for the selected large wind turbine.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yane Li ◽  
Conghuan Le ◽  
Hongyan Ding ◽  
Puyang Zhang ◽  
Jian Zhang

The paper discusses the effects of mooring configurations on the dynamic response of a submerged floating offshore wind turbine (SFOWT) for intermediate water depths. A coupled dynamic model of a wind turbine-tower-floating platform-mooring system is established, and the dynamic response of the platform, tensions in mooring lines, and bending moment at the tower base and blade root under four different mooring configurations are checked. A well-stabilized configuration (i.e., four vertical lines and 12 diagonal lines with an inclination angle of 30°) is selected to study the coupled dynamic responses of SFOWT with broken mooring lines, and in order to keep the safety of SFOWT under extreme sea-states, the pretension of the vertical mooring line has to increase from 1800–2780 kN. Results show that the optimized mooring system can provide larger restoring force, and the SFOWT has a smaller movement response under extreme sea-states; when the mooring lines in the upwind wave direction are broken, an increased motion response of the platform will be caused. However, there is no slack in the remaining mooring lines, and the SFOWT still has enough stability.


Author(s):  
Wei-Ting Hsu ◽  
Tzu-Ching Chuang ◽  
Wen-Yang Hsu ◽  
Krish Sharman ◽  
Ray-Yeng Yang

Abstract Sudden snap events on mooring lines and hanging cables can cause spikes in tension, resulting in reduced safety factors during extreme events. For example, the mooring system of a floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) can be exposed to wave-induced motions making the former vulnerable to snap type impact. Suitable criteria to define snap events are still largely unclear, making current design practices overly conservative. To understand the underlying physics of snap loads on a mooring line system, this paper presents a theoretical development and an experimental parametric study of snap events. The effects of the nonlinearity of bilinear line stiffness and hydrodynamic drag force, as well as the weight of payload on snap events are investigated using the vertical hanging cable model. This cable model includes two springs in series and a payload. The bilinear spring model is designed to create nonlinear dynamic tension. A total of 108 tests were conducted in the wave tank of Tainan Hydraulic Laboratory. The excitation amplitude ranges from 0.01 to 0.04m; excitation time period ranges from 0.5 to 2s; the weight of payload ranges from 6.13 to 18.95N. The tests carried out in water are compared to those conducted in air. It is seen that the hydrodynamic drag force together with the small pretension could result in larger normalized tension ranges.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 1809 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhenqing Liu ◽  
Qingsong Zhou ◽  
Yuangang Tu ◽  
Wei Wang ◽  
Xugang Hua

The semi-submersible floating offshore wind turbine has been studied in detail due to its good stability. However, the occurrence of typhoons are very frequent in China’s offshore area, putting forward a higher requirement for the stability of the floating wind turbine system. By changing the connection mode of the mooring line as well as the structural form of the platform based on the original OC4 model, two groups of models were examined by an in-house developed code named as the Analysis Tool of Floating Wind Turbine (AFWT). The influence of the arrangement of the mooring lines and the inclination angle of the upper columns on the motion response were clarified. It was found that the surge motion of the platform would be obviously decreased by decreasing the length of the upper segments of the mooring lines, while the heave motion of the platform would be significantly decreased as increasing the inclined angle of the columns. Therefore, a new model integrating the optimized multi-segmented mooring lines and the optimized inclined columns was proposed. The examinations showed that compared with the response motions of the original OC4 semi-submersible model, the proposed model could reduce both the surge and heave motions of the platform effectively.


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