Numerical Modelling of Dynamic Responses of a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Subject to Focused Waves

• Published in: Energies (Basel) Vol. 12; no. 18; p. 3482
• Main Authors: Zhou, Yang, Xiao, Qing, Liu, Yuanchuan, Incecik, Atilla, Peyrard, Christophe, Li, Sunwei, Pan, Guang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 09.09.2019
• Subjects: computational fluid dynamics (CFD); Engineering; floating offshore wind turbine; Fluid-structure interaction; focused wave; International conferences; Laboratories; Navier-Stokes equations; nonlinear hydrodynamic response; Numerical analysis; Reynolds number; Simulation; Theory; Turbines; Water waves; United Kingdom > UK; France; United States > US; Arctic region; China
• ISSN: 1996-1073; 1996-1073
• DOI: 10.3390/en12183482

In this paper, we present numerical modelling for the investigation of dynamic responses of a floating offshore wind turbine subject to focused waves. The modelling was carried out using a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool. We started with the generation of a focused wave in a numerical wave tank based on a first-order irregular wave theory, then validated the developed numerical method for wave-structure interaction via a study of floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) to focused wave. Subsequently, we investigated the wave-/wind-structure interaction of a fixed semi-submersible platform, a floating semi-submersible platform and a parked National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) 5 MW floating offshore wind turbine. To understand the nonlinear effect, which usually occurs under severe sea states, we carried out a systematic study of the motion responses, hydrodynamic and mooring tension loads of floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) over a range of wave steepness, and compared the results obtained from two potential flow theory tools with each other, i.e., Électricité de France (EDF) in-house code and NREL Fatigue, Aerodynamics, Structures, and Turbulence (FAST). We found that the nonlinearity of the hydrodynamic loading and motion responses increase with wave steepness, revealed by higher-order frequency response, leading to the appearance of discrepancies among different tools.