A parametric study on the final blade installation process for monopile wind turbines under rough environmental conditions

Abstract

Single blade installation is a method for installing wind turbine blades. If a jack-up vessel is used during an o shore installation, the wind turbine blade is mainly subjected to wind loads and experiences resonant motions, and the monopile is subjected to wave-induced vibrations. The blade mating process can be challenging if large relative motions occur between the blade root and the monopile top. This study numerically models a blade installation system that consists of a pre-installed monopile and nacelle assembly, and a 5 MW blade with tugger lines. By analyzing the blade-root and the hub motion radii from time-domain simulations, we evaluate the effects of mean wind speed, wind turbulence, significant wave height, wave spectrum peak period, wind-wave misalignment, and water depth on the blade installation. For the alignment phase, the blade-root motion is critical, especially when the mean wind speed and turbulence are high. The hub motion can be important when the monopile resonant responses are prominent. The relative in-plane motions rather than the hub or the blade motion alone should be considered during the assessment. For the mating phase, the high-frequency components of the responses are important in general. Because of the dominant flange-hole motions at the monopile top, an increase in water depth reduces the success rate of mating.