Abstract
Abstract. This paper describes the analysis of a wind turbine and support structure subject to simulated hurricane wind fields. The hurricane wind fields, which result from a large eddy simulation of a hurricane, exhibit features such as very high gust factors (>1.7), rapid direction changes (30∘ in 30 s), and substantial veer. Wind fields including these features have not previously been used in an analysis of a wind turbine, and their effect on structural loads may be an important driver of enhanced design considerations. With a focus on blade root loads and tower base loads, the simulations show that these features of hurricane wind fields can lead to loads that are substantially in excess of those that would be predicted if wind fields with equally high mean wind speeds but without the associated direction change and veer were used in the analysis. This result, if further verified for a range of hurricane and tropical storm simulations, should provide an impetus for revisiting design standards.
Highlights
Activity related to offshore wind energy development continues to accelerate along the US East Coast
To simulate a wind turbine in FAST subjected to hurricane wind conditions, TurbSimv2 is used to generate wind input files that are compatible with FAST and that capture the key characteristics of the wind fields produced by the large eddy simulations (LESs)
When the baseline hurricane winds (BASE), VEER, or misaligned hurricane winds (MISAL) cases are applied to the turbine, the tower demands in the side-to-side (SS) direction and the blade demands in the rotor plane increase compared to the rated power (RATED) case
Summary
Activity related to offshore wind energy development continues to accelerate along the US East Coast. We analyze winds and turbulence from an LES of an idealized Category 5 hurricane using Cloud Model 1 (CM1), a three-dimensional, non-hydrostatic, nonlinear, time-dependent numerical model designed for idealized studies of atmospheric phenomena (Bryan and Rotunno, 2009a) These simulations have been used to identify wind field characteristics, such as gust factors, spatial coherence, velocity spectrum, shear profile, direction change, and veer (Worsnop et al, 2017a), that may be important drivers of offshore wind turbine response.
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