Abstract
This paper documents the round robin testing campaign carried out on a floating wind turbine as part of the EU H2020 MaRINET2 project. A 1/60th scale model of a 10 MW floating platform was tested in wave basins in four different locations around Europe. The tests carried out in each facility included decay tests, tests in regular and irregular waves with and without wind thrust, and tests to characterise the mooring system as well as the model itself. For the tests in wind, only the thrust of the turbine was considered and it was fixed to pre-selected levels. Hence, this work focuses on the hydrodynamic responses of a semi-submersible floating foundation. It was found that the global surge stiffness was comparable across facilities, except in one case where different azimuth angles were used for the mooring lines. Heave and pitch had the same stiffness coefficient and periods for all basins. Response Amplitude Operators (RAOs) were used to compare the responses in waves from all facilities. The shape of the motion RAOs were globally similar for all basins except around some particular frequencies. As the results were non-linear around the resonance and cancellation frequencies, the differences between facilities were magnified at these frequencies. Surge motions were significantly impacted by reflections leading to large differences in these RAOs between all basins.
Highlights
The offshore wind industry has seen remarkable advances over the last decade
Bottom-fixed turbines account for the majority of offshore wind capacity; floating wind accounts for only 62 MW at present1
A key research area is the development of floating platforms and mooring systems that can withstand the enormous forces generated by increasingly large turbines in rough seas
Summary
The offshore wind industry has seen remarkable advances over the last decade. Europe has over 25 GW of installed offshore wind capacity, of which 2.9 GW was installed in2020. Bottom-fixed turbines account for the majority of offshore wind capacity; floating wind accounts for only 62 MW at present. As the industry develops and energy demands increase, turbines are getting larger and moving further from shore to take advantage of higher wind speeds. This trend presents significant technical challenges due to the deeper waters and the increasingly dynamic wind and wave conditions encountered. For a floating wind platform, wave basin testing typically involves still water decay tests, tests in regular and irregular waves with and without wind emulation, tests to characterise the mooring system and tests on dry land to characterise the model itself (e.g., the moments of inertia (MoI) and the centre of gravity (CoG)). Model testing is often the first opportunity to carry out a simplified, but global, assessment of the whole system (i.e., modelling the moored floater and the turbine together) [1]
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