Research on transportation stability for customized floating transportation equipment with the negative pressure suction bucket foundation of offshore wind turbines

Abstract

Global development of the offshore wind energy is devoted to applying. As one of the important foundation types of offshore wind turbine, the suction bucket foundation has been widely used in recent years. However, the suction bucket foundation can not be transported by the common barge like other foundation types due to its large opening at the foundation bottom. Additionally, little research work has been done by now with respect to the transportation device of the suction bucket wind turbine foundation. Thus, this paper presents a floating transportation equipment (FTE) for the negative pressure suction bucket foundation (NPSBF) of offshore wind turbines, and the basic design and main transportation means are introduced. The hydrodynamic characteristics of integrated FTE-NPSBF structure are comprehensively studied from the metacentric height, static stability and RAO performances. The ability of FTE as a transportation aid to provide stability for the NPSBF is verified, and the vibration reduction measures under the condition of wave resonance during the floating transportation process are given.