Multivariate probability analysis of wind-wave actions on offshore wind turbine via copula-based analysis

Abstract

Floating structures in service encounter extreme natural hazards, such as correlated extreme wind-wave loads. This study aims to provide realistic multivariate models of environmental parameters to accurately describe the statistical characteristics of metoceanic conditions, which are essential for the reliability-based design of marine structures. The multiload analysis method includes three major steps: (1) to identify the best-fit univariate marginal distributions of the wind-wave parameters. Mixed models composed of a set of single-mode parametric distributions were found to be more suitable for the measured variables. (2) To construct joint probability distributions of multiple variables using copula-based models, the performance of various models namely, trivariate metaelliptical copulas, Archimedean copulas, and vine copula models. It was observed that joint distributions can be best modelled using vine copula models with considerable flexibility. The final process involves establishing environmental surfaces and contours based on the inverse first-order reliability method. The most unfavourable combination of extreme design conditions can be defined on the environmental surface which is useful for evaluating the response characteristics of offshore wind turbines. These expressions provide a preliminary assessment of wind-wave loads on offshore structures.