Validation of a panel method with full-scale FOWT measurements and verification with engineering models

Abstract

The present paper gives insights into the verification of different models of the Floatgen demonstrator by BW Ideol. This floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) is based on a barge type-floater with moonpool. The moonpool shall dampen the platform’s motion and is challenging to model due to the increased complexity of the hydrodynamic behaviour. For the verification purposes, the results of two engineering methods (OrcaFlex, OpenFAST) equipped with frequency-dependent hydrodynamic solver and the nonlinear time-domain boundary element method panMARE are compared. The OrcaFlex model designed by BW Ideol is regarded as a reference because of a preceding calibration with measurement data. All models show fairly good agreement in most cases. Only in heave there are significant differences between engineering and the nonlinear models which is caused by different modelling of the moonpool hydrodynamics. In addition, a hybrid simulation approach with prescribed motion and constrained wind field based on motion sensors and LIDAR measurements on the Floatgen demonstrator was applied for an aerodynamic and load validation of panMARE. The validation shows good agreement based on time-domain comparison regarding the tower top loads and turbine operation.