Verification of interface between an aeroelastic code and a time domain Rankine solver for completing structural analysis of floating wind turbine foundation design

Abstract

The aim of this study is to verify a new interface between an aeroelastic code, Bladed, and a 3D potential flow solver, Sesam’s Wasim. The interface is developed to transfer floater kinematics and sea state from a fully-coupled time domain simulation of a floating wind turbine into a 3D time domain potential flow solver to compute a time history of the pressure distribution on the foundation, and at the same time transfer the loads of wind turbine and mooring forces calculated in the coupled analysis. The pressure distribution, together with the other loads, can then be used for performing the structural analysis and post-processing of the floater. The functionality of the interface has been verified with various test cases. The verification study shows that the interface works properly.