Fatigue Reliability and Calibration of Fatigue Design Factors for Offshore Wind Turbines

Consequences of failure of offshore wind turbines (OWTs) is in general lower than consequences of failure of, e.g., oil & gas platforms. It is reasonable that lower fatigue design factors can be applied for fatigue design of OWTs when compared to other fixed offshore structures. Calibration of a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEnergies (Basel) Vol. 5; no. 6; pp. 1816 - 1834
Main Authors Márquez-Domínguez, Sergio, Sørensen, John D.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.06.2012
Subjects
Calibration
Costs
Design
fatigue design factors
Fracture mechanics
inspections
Load
Metal fatigue
Offshore
reliability
stochastic models
Turbines
wind turbine
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Summary:Consequences of failure of offshore wind turbines (OWTs) is in general lower than consequences of failure of, e.g., oil & gas platforms. It is reasonable that lower fatigue design factors can be applied for fatigue design of OWTs when compared to other fixed offshore structures. Calibration of appropriate partial safety factors/Fatigue Design Factors (FDF) for steel substructures for OWTs is the scope of this paper. A reliability-based approach is used and a probabilistic model has been developed, where design and limit state equations are established for fatigue failure. The strength and load uncertainties are described by stochastic variables. SN and fracture mechanics approaches are considered for to model the fatigue life. Further, both linear and bi-linear SN-curves are formulated and various approximations are investigated. The acceptable reliability level for fatigue failure of OWTs is discussed and results are presented for calibrated optimal fatigue design factors. Further, the influence of inspections is considered in order to extend and maintain a given target safety level.
ISSN:1996-1073
1996-1073
DOI:10.3390/en5061816