Fatigue Design of Mooring Lines of Floating Type Combined Renewable Energy Platforms

Abstract

This paper presents the concept design procedure of a floating-type combined renewable energy platform based on hydrodynamic analyses and is focused on the fatigue design of taut-type mooring lines of the platform. Two types of combined renewable energy platforms are considered: a combination of wind turbine, wave turbine and photovoltaic energy plant and a combination of wind turbine, current turbine and photovoltaic energy plant. The basic configurations are conceptually determined from the understanding of floating offshore plants, while the main dimensions have been determined based on a hydrostatic calculation. Fully coupled hydrodynamic analyses have been carried out to identify the motion characteristics of the floating body and the tension histories of the mooring lines. The tension history is used for the fatigue life prediction based on the rain-flow cycle counting method. For the fatigue life prediction, tension life curves from API and the Palmgren-Miner rule are employed.