Abstract
AbstractThis paper presents dynamic response and fatigue analyses of several bottom‐mounted offshore wind turbine (OWT) models, simulated in the aero‐hydro‐servo‐elastic simulation tool FAST. The distinction between the models is the foundations, which are modelled with different methods, concepts, and dimensions. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory has developed a 5‐MW reference turbine supported on a monopile, the NREL 5MW, which was used as a reference model in this paper. The paper presents the implementation and comparison of two different foundation modeling methods, referred to as the simplified apparent fixity method and the improved apparent fixity method. Furthermore, sensitivity analyses of different monopile dimensions were performed, followed by sensitivity analyses of suction caisson foundations of different dimensions. The final part of the paper presents fatigue analyses for the foundation models considered in this study subjected to 17 load cases. Fatigue damage, fatigue life, and damage equivalent loads were calculated, as well as the relative fatigue contribution from each load case.
Highlights
The global focus on utilizing renewable energy sources is constantly increasing
The damage equivalent loads (DELs) are reported as range values, or peak-to-peak values, with fixed mean values calculated by MLife, fluctuating with a frequency of 1 Hz
The monopile with a shorter length of 16 m shows almost no difference in fatigue life compared with the original monopile with length 36 m, which underlines the conclusions drawn in Section 3.1 on potentially conservative design
Summary
The global focus on utilizing renewable energy sources is constantly increasing. The offshore wind industry has grown remarkably over the past few years. This growth has brought global offshore wind capacity to over 20 GW.[1]. An important research area within offshore wind turbines (OWTs) is the response of different foundations. Monopile is by far the most common foundation type and accounts for over 80% of all installed OWTs.[2] new concepts for larger water depths, such as suction caissons, multi-piles, and moored floating structures, are being investigated. The monopile is expected to continue to have a large market share in the years to come
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