Historical trends of floating wind turbine fatigue loads (Ireland 1920–2010)

Abstract

We present a new method for analysing the fatigue loads of offshore floating wind turbines over the long term. In this method, bias-corrected wind and wave data from the 20th century (ERA20C versus ERA5 reanalysis) is used for an energetic sea location in western Ireland. To reduce the computational cost and theoretical complexity, the sea states were clustered into categories to indicate how these categories evolve over three climate periods during a period of 30 years (1921–1950, 1951–1980, and 1981–2010). OpenFAST aeroelastic code simulation in floating mode was then conducted at each sea state for spar-type 5-MW and semi-submersible 15-MW wind turbines. This shows the damage loads and fatigue increments over the century, with some relevant cases (rotor torque, blade pitch and flapping, and tower side–side and fore–aft moments) showing fatigue increments of 5%–8%. Thus, in the new method, historical data are used to create a model to represent the evolution of sea states and corresponding fatigue over the long term, which can be applied globally to future projections.