Numerical study of ice-induced loads and dynamic response analysis for floating offshore wind turbines

Abstract

This paper presents a suite of ice load models using a coupled aero-hydro-servo-elastic numerical model to study dynamic response of floating offshore wind turbines in cold regions that sea ice is present. The coupled aero-hydro-servo-elastic model consists of wind inflow dynamics, rotor aerodynamics, structural multibody dynamics of the system, wave and current kinematics, hydrodynamics, mooring-line dynamics and ice loads. This open-source numerical model provides a modular framework to investigate the common wind turbine configurations, support structure systems and mooring lines for different environmental conditions. The 5MW National Renewable Energy Laboratory wind turbine is used as a target turbine. Verification studies are performed to show the accuracy of the numerical model. The analyses show that the proposed approach provides reasonable results for the calculation of ice loads on the offshore wind turbine structure as well as the system dynamic response. It is expected that the proposed model would be widely used to study, investigate and analyze the different aspects of floating offshore wind turbine design, leading to the promotion and advancement of science and technology in the offshore renewable energy industry.