SPH simulation and experimental validation of the dynamic response of floating offshore wind turbines in waves

Abstract

The SPH (smoothed particle hydrodynamics) method coupled with a mooring analysis program is adopted to investigate the accuracy of the SPH method in simulating the hydrodynamics of FOWTs (floating offshore wind turbines). Both experimental and numerical studies were conducted for a floating box and a scaled FOWT model interacting with multiple wave conditions. The SPH method is proven to be accurate in solving the motion of the floaters under multiple wave conditions, showing good consistency with the experimental data. In addition, the snapshots of the wave profile and the motions of the box and FOWT model are compared between SPH results and experiments. Finally, the application of the SPH method is extended to real-scale FOWT simulations. The motion response and mooring line force in the simulations are analyzed and show that the SPH method has the potential to be applied to real-scale FOWT hydrodynamics problems.