scholarly journals Dynamic Modeling of an Offshore Floating Wind Turbine for Application in the Mediterranean Sea

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 248
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Cottura ◽  
Riccardo Caradonna ◽  
Alberto Ghigo ◽  
Riccardo Novo ◽  
Giovanni Bracco ◽  
...  

Wind power is emerging as one of the most sustainable and low-cost options for energy production. Far-offshore floating wind turbines are attractive in view of exploiting high wind availability sites while minimizing environmental and landscape impact. In the last few years, some offshore floating wind farms were deployed in Northern Europe for technology validation, with very promising results. At present time, however, no offshore wind farm installations have been developed in the Mediterranean Sea. The aim of this work is to comprehensively model an offshore floating wind turbine and examine the behavior resulting from a wide spectrum of sea and wind states typical of the Mediterranean Sea. The flexible and accessible in-house model developed for this purpose is compared with the reference model FAST v8.16 for verifying its reliability. Then, a simulation campaign is carried out to estimate the wind turbine LCOE (Levelized Cost of Energy). Based on this, the best substructure is chosen and the convenience of the investment is evaluated.

Author(s):  
Knut O. Ronold ◽  
Vigleik L. Hansen ◽  
Marte Godvik ◽  
Einar Landet ◽  
Erik R. Jo̸rgensen ◽  
...  

Floating offshore wind turbines is a field undergoing major development. Several companies and research institutes worldwide are engaged in research programs, pilot projects and even planning of commercial floating wind farms. Developing standards for design of floating wind turbine structures and a framework for prevailing rules are crucial and necessary for the industry to continue to grow. Det Norske Veritas (DNV) is an international provider of offshore standards for both the oil and gas industry and the wind energy industry. The standard DNV-OS-J101 “Design of Offshore Wind Turbine Structures” provides principles, technical requirements and guidance for design, construction and in-service inspection of offshore wind turbine structures. As a first step towards updating this standard to fully cover floating wind turbine structures, a DNV Guideline for Offshore Floating Wind Turbines has been established. This development is based on identification of current floating wind turbine concepts and the guideline includes an evaluation of what is required to make DNV-OS-J101 suitable for floating wind turbine structures. This paper presents the highlights of the new DNV Guideline for Offshore Floating Wind Turbine Structures.


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.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaodong Wang ◽  
Zhaoliang Ye ◽  
Ziwen Chen ◽  
Yize Guo ◽  
Yujun Qiao

Abstract Offshore wind energy developed rapidly in recent years. Due to the platform motions causing by ocean waves, the aerodynamics of floating offshore wind turbines (FOWT) show strong unsteady characters than onshore wind turbines. The widely used methods to investigate the unsteady aerodynamic performance of wind turbine are Blade Element Momentum (BEM) and Free-Vortex Wake (FVW) methods. The accuracy of these two methods strongly depend on empirical formula or correction models. However, for dynamics motions of wind turbine, there is still a lack of accurate models. CFD simulations using overset or dynamic mesh methods also have been used for FOWT aerodynamic investigations. However, the mesh deforming or reconstruction methods are usually suitable for small movement of wind turbine blade. In this paper, a dual-sliding mesh method is employed to simulate the unsteady aerodynamic characters of an offshore floating wind turbine with supporting platform motions using Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) simulations. Both rotor rotation and platform motions are treated as rigid angular motions. The relative motion and data exchange were simulated using sliding mesh method. The NREL 5MW reference wind turbine with platform pitching and rolling motions are considered. The pitching and rolling motions of floating platform are simplified in the form of a prescribed sinusoidal function. Different conditions with two amplitudes and two frequencies of pitching and rolling motions were investigated. URANS were performed with full structured mesh for wind turbine rotor using commercial software FLUENT. The platform motions were set using User Defined Function (UDF). Transitional Shear Stress Turbulence (T-SST) model was employed. The simulation results were compared with BEM method and FVW method results. Both steady status and dynamic pitching processes are investigated. The variations of wind turbine aerodynamic load, as well as the aerodynamic character of airfoils at different spanwise positions, were obtained and analyzed in detail. The simulations results show that the platform pitching introduce remarkable influence on the wind turbine aerodynamic performance. The platform pitching has much larger influence on the wind turbine power and thrust than the platform rolling. The dual-sliding mesh method shows potentials to investigation the dynamic process with multiple rigid motions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 5761 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chakib El Mokhi ◽  
Adnane Addaim

Wind energy is currently one of the fastest-growing renewable energy sources in the world. For this reason, research on methods to render wind farms more energy efficient is reasonable. The optimization of wind turbine positions within wind farms makes the exploitation of wind energy more efficient and the wind farms more competitive with other energy resources. The investment costs alone for substation and electrical infrastructure for offshore wind farms run around 15–30% of the total investment costs of the project, which are considered high. Optimizing the substation location can reduce these costs, which also minimizes the overall cable length within the wind farm. In parallel, optimizing the cable routing can provide an additional benefit by finding the optimal grid network routing. In this article, the authors show the procedure on how to create an optimized wind farm already in the design phase using metaheuristic algorithms. Besides the optimization of wind turbine positions for more energy efficiency, the optimization methods of the substation location and the cable routing for the collector system to avoid cable losses are also presented.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 882 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hongyan Ding ◽  
Zuntao Feng ◽  
Puyang Zhang ◽  
Conghuan Le ◽  
Yaohua Guo

The composite bucket foundation (CBF) for offshore wind turbines is the basis for a one-step integrated transportation and installation technique, which can be adapted to the construction and development needs of offshore wind farms due to its special structural form. To transport and install bucket foundations together with the upper portion of offshore wind turbines, a non-self-propelled integrated transportation and installation vessel was designed. In this paper, as the first stage of applying the proposed one-step integrated construction technique, the floating behavior during the transportation of CBF with a wind turbine tower for the Xiangshui wind farm in the Jiangsu province was monitored. The influences of speed, wave height, and wind on the floating behavior of the structure were studied. The results show that the roll and pitch angles remain close to level during the process of lifting and towing the wind turbine structure. In addition, the safety of the aircushion structure of the CBF was verified by analyzing the measurement results for the interaction force and the depth of the liquid within the bucket. The results of the three-DOF (degree of freedom) acceleration monitoring on the top of the test tower indicate that the wind turbine could meet the specified acceleration value limits during towing.


Author(s):  
Paul Sclavounos ◽  
Christopher Tracy ◽  
Sungho Lee

Wind is the fastest growing renewable energy source, increasing at an annual rate of 25% with a worldwide installed capacity of 74 GW in 2007. The vast majority of wind power is generated from onshore wind farms. Their growth is however limited by the lack of inexpensive land near major population centers and the visual pollution caused by large wind turbines. Wind energy generated from offshore wind farms is the next frontier. Large sea areas with stronger and steadier winds are available for wind farm development and 5MW wind turbine towers located 20 miles from the coastline are invisible. Current offshore wind turbines are supported by monopoles driven into the seafloor at coastal sites a few miles from shore and in water depths of 10–15m. The primary impediment to their growth is visual pollution and the prohibitive cost of seafloor mounted monopoles in larger water depths. This paper presents a fully coupled dynamic analysis of floating wind turbines that enables a parametric design study of floating wind turbine concepts and mooring systems. Pareto optimal designs are presented that possess a favorable combination of nacelle acceleration, mooring system tension and displacement of the floating structure supporting a five megawatt wind turbine. All concepts are selected so that they float stably while in tow to the offshore wind farm site and prior to their connection to the mooring system. A fully coupled dynamic analysis is carried out of the wind turbine, floater and mooring system in wind and a sea state based on standard computer programs used by the offshore and wind industries. The results of the parametric study are designs that show Pareto fronts for mean square acceleration of the turbine versus key cost drivers for the offshore structure that include the weight of the floating structure and the static plus dynamic mooring line tension. Pareto optimal structures are generally either a narrow deep drafted spar, or a shallow drafted barge ballasted with concrete. The mooring systems include both tension leg and catenary mooring systems. In some of the designs, the RMS acceleration of the wind turbine nacelle can be as low as 0.03 g in a sea state with a significant wave height of ten meters and water depths of up to 200 meters. These structures meet design requirements while possessing a favorable combination of nacelle accleration, total mooring system tension and weight of the floating structure. Their economic assessment is also discussed drawing upon a recent financial analysis of a proposed offshore wind farm.


2012 ◽  
Vol 226-228 ◽  
pp. 772-775
Author(s):  
Yu Chen ◽  
Chun Li ◽  
Wei Gao ◽  
Jia Bin Nie

Offshore wind turbine is a novel approach in the field of wind energy technology. With the rapid development of coastal wind farms, it is the trend to move them outward to deep-water district. However, the cost of construction rises significantly with the increase in water depth. Floating wind turbine is one of the efficient methods to solve this problem. The early history, current status and cutting-edge improvements of overseas offshore floating wind turbine as well as the shortcomings shall be presented. The concept designs, international standards, fully coupled model simulations and hydrodynamic experiments will be illustrated and discussed together with the development of the theory and the related software modules. Thus a novel researching method and concept shall be presented to provide reference for future researches


Author(s):  
Daniel Buhagiar ◽  
Tonio Sant

Offshore wind farms are presently facing numerous technical challenges that are affecting their viability. High failure rates of expensive nacelle-based electronics and gearboxes are particularly problematic. On-going research is investigating the possibility of shifting to a seawater-based hydraulic power transmission, whereby wind turbines pressurise seawater that is transmitted across a high-pressure pipeline network. A 9-turbine hydraulic wind farm with three different configurations is simulated in the present work and a previously developed method for open-loop pressure control of a single turbine has been adapted for this multiple-turbine scenario. A conceptual quasi-constant-pressure accumulator is also included in the model. This system is directly integrated within each hydraulic wind turbine and it allows the output power from the wind farm to be scheduled on an hourly basis. The shift in control methodology when integrating storage is illustrated in the present work. Simulation results indicate a strong relationship between hydraulic performance attributes and the specific wind turbine array layout. The beneficial effects of storage can also be observed, particularly in smoothing the output power and rendering it more useable. Finally, the energy yields from 24-hour simulations of the 9-turbine wind farms are calculated. Integrated storage leads to a slight increase in yield since it eliminates bursts of high flow, which induce higher frictional losses in the pipeline network.


Author(s):  
Hideyuki Suzuki ◽  
Masaru Kurimoto ◽  
Yu Kitahara ◽  
Yukinari Fukumoto

A wide range of platform types have been investigated for a floating wind turbine. Most of the research projects on a floating wind turbine assume that a land based wind turbine is to be installed on a platform with minimum modification to reduce the overall cost. For this reason, allowable limit of a motion of wind turbine is limited to lower value, for example, five degrees for static inclination and one to two degrees for pitching motion. So far analysis and design of motion characteristics of the platform have been main research concern. One key research area less focused is floating platform related risk. If the wind energy would be one of the major sources of power supply, wind farms which are comprised of large number of floating wind turbines must be deployed in the ocean. Wind turbines will be closely spaced in a wind farm so that installation cost should be minimized. In such an arrangement, a wind turbine accidentally started drifting has some possibility to collide or contact with the moorings of neighboring wind turbines and might cause progressive drifting of wind turbines. This paper present investigation of scenario of progressive drifting of floating wind turbines and evaluate risk of the scenario. Quantitative risk of several arrangements of wind farms is estimated. Effect of arrangement of wind turbines in a wind farm and safety factor used in design moorings is discussed.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 569-586 ◽  
Author(s):  
Davide Trabucchi ◽  
Lukas Vollmer ◽  
Martin Kühn

Abstract. The number of turbines installed in offshore wind farms has strongly increased in the last years and at the same time the need for more precise estimations of the wind farm efficiency too. In this sense, the interaction between wakes has become a relevant aspect for the definition of a wind farm layout, for the assessment of its annual energy yield and for the evaluation of wind turbine fatigue loads. For this reason, accurate models for multiple overlapping wakes are a main concern of the wind energy community. Existing engineering models can only simulate single wakes, which are superimposed when they are interacting in a wind farm. This method is a practical solution, but it is not fully supported by a physical background. The limitation to single wakes is given by the assumption that the wake is axisymmetric. As an alternative, we propose a new shear-layer model that is based on the existing engineering wake models but is extended to also simulate non-axisymmetric wakes. In this paper, we present the theoretical background of the model and four application cases. We evaluate the new model for the simulation of single and multiple wakes using large-eddy simulations as reference. In particular, we report the improvements of the new model predictions in comparison to a sum-of-squares superposition approach for the simulation of three interacting wakes. The lower deviation from the reference considering single and multiple wakes encourages the further development of the model and promises a successful application for the simulation of wind farm flows.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document