Abstract
This paper presents the design and analysis of a mooring buoy and its mooring systems to moor a floating platform mounting an arrayed Wave Energy Converters (WECs). The mooring buoy allows the WEC platform to weathervane around the mooring buoy freely by the prevailing environment directions, which enables consistent power generation. The WEC platform is connected to the buoy with synthetic hawsers, while station-keeping of the buoy is maintained with catenary mooring lines of chains tied to the buoy keel. The buoy also accommodates a power cable to transfer the electricity from the WEC platform to the shore. The WEC platform is designed to produce a total of 1.0 MW with multiple WECs installed in an array. Fully coupled time-domain analyses are conducted under the site sea states, including extreme 50 y and survival 100 y conditions. The buoy motions, mooring tensions and other design parameters are evaluated. Strength and fatigue designs of the mooring systems are validated with requirements according to industry standards. Global and local structural designs of the mooring buoy are carried out and confirm the design compliances.
Highlights
There are various types of offshore energy devices that generate power from waves.Those can be broadly categorized into several types of platforms or devices, according to the energy-capturing method [1,2]
A station-keeping system for the floating Wave Energy Converters (WECs) was developed for the WEC device to meet the design requirements of power production and safety in the extreme seas
Most WEC systems are non-networked system, so mooring methods used for oil and gas platforms are implemented for a shallow or deep-water application
Summary
There are various types of offshore energy devices that generate power from waves. Those can be broadly categorized into several types of platforms or devices, according to the energy-capturing method [1,2]. A station-keeping system for the floating WEC was developed for the WEC device to meet the design requirements of power production and safety in the extreme seas. Most WEC systems are non-networked system, so mooring methods used for oil and gas platforms are implemented for a shallow or deep-water application. Those can include spread mooring and vertically tensioned taut mooring.
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