Long term response analysis of TLP-type offshore wind turbine

Abstract

The performance of offshore wind turbine supported with different configurations of Tension-leg-platform (TLP) are studied for vertical plane motion responses (surge, heave, and pitch) along with the side-to-side, fore–aft, and yaw tower base bending moments. The long-term distribution is carried out using the short-term floating wind turbine responses based on Rayleigh distributions and North Atlantic wave data. The long-term response analysis is performed for the 5 MW TLP-type offshore wind turbine. The study aims at predicting the most probable maximum values of motion amplitudes that can be used for design purposes. The transfer functions for surge, heave and pitch motions of the floater are obtained using the FAST code. The performance of floating structure in the long-term analysis not only depends on the transfer functions but also on the careful selection of design wave spectrum model. Among different theoretical design wave spectrum models, three models are chosen that closely represents the sea states and the response spectrums are computed for these models. As the nature of the response spectrum of the floating structure is analogous with the input wave spectrum model, it can be assumed to have the same probabilistic properties and modeled as a stationary stochastic process. The long-term probability distributions for TLP-type floater configuration for surge, heave and pitch motion amplitudes along with the tower base bending moments are used for design purposes, so as to guarantee the safety of the floating wind turbines against overturning/capsizing in high waves and wind speed. The calculation of the long-term distribution using FAST will help in the preliminary analysis of the performance of floaters in the study of wave-induced response of floaters.