Service Operation Vessels Fleet Size and Mix Location Routing for the Maintenance of an Offshore Floating Wind Farm

• Published in: Journal of marine science and engineering Vol. 11; no. 3; p. 664
• Main Authors: Silva, Lis M. R., Li, He, Guedes Soares, C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.03.2023
• Subjects: Buildings and facilities; Decision making; Failure; fleet size and mix location vehicle-routing problem; Floating; floating wind turbines; Heuristic; Industrial locations; Integer programming; Linear programming; Maintenance; Mathematical models; Mixed integer; mixed-integer linear programming; Motor vehicle fleets; Navigation; Offshore; operations and maintenance activities; Optimization techniques; Planning; Preventive maintenance; Route planning; Scheduling; Support ships; Transportation industry; Turbines; Vehicle routing; Wind; Wind farms; Wind power
• ISSN: 2077-1312; 2077-1312
• DOI: 10.3390/jmse11030664

Mixed-integer linear programming is adopted to translate the routing of service operation vessels that support the logistic aspects of the maintenance of offshore floating wind farms into mathematical language. The models attempt to help the decision-makers by providing quantified tools to screen out the optimal planning for preventive maintenance. The models search for the optimal offshore base location, vessel’s routing per day, vessel’s capacity, and vessel fleet composition that minimize the total fixed and variable infrastructure cost. The integration of the vehicle fleet size and mix problem, facility location–allocation problem, and vehicle-routing problem with time window advances the state of the art. A realistic case study is shown, and the results and discussions demonstrated that the practical insights of the solutions, as well as the identification of the route patterns through a navigation route table, may improve the decision planning of preventive maintenance.