• Journal of Wind Energy
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• 제9권4호
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• pp.16-23
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• 2018

A damage detection method for the tripod support structure of offshore wind turbines is presented for structural health monitoring. A finite element model of a prototype tripod support structure is established and the modal properties are calculated. The degree and location of the damage are estimated based on the neural network technique using the changes of natural frequencies and mode shape due to the damage. The stress distribution occurring in the support structure is obtained by a dynamic analysis for the wind turbine system to select the output data of the neural network. The natural frequencies and mode shapes for 36 possible damage scenarios were used for the input data of the learned neural network for damage assessment. The estimated damages agreed reasonably well with the accurate ones. The presented method could be effectively applied for damage detection and structural health monitoring of various types of support structures of offshore wind turbines.

• Journal of Wind Energy
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• 제13권1호
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• pp.5-14
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• 2022

Currently, the Korean government is driving the construction of large-scale floating offshore wind farms to increase domestic renewable energy generation and decrease carbon emissions. In offshore wind farms, maintenance approaches can be limited more often than onshore wind farms by marine weather conditions (wave height, etc.). Therefore, maintenance planning optimization is more important to minimize maintenance costs and power generation loss by downtime. Additionally, the power generation of a wind farm is affected by wind speed as well as wind direction because of the wake effect, so it is possible that power generation loss by downtime is also dependent on combinations of weather conditions (wind speed and direction) and the location of wind turbines for maintenance. In this study, the effects of the wind conditions and the locations of tripped wind turbines on power generation loss were explored for a hypothetical floating offshore wind farm. In order to calculate the power generation of a wind farm, a wake effect calculator was developed based on Jensen's formula. Then, a simple methodology of determining maintenance priorities that minimize power generation loss was proposed.

• New & Renewable Energy
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• 제20권2호
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• pp.26-34
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• 2024

Floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) have been developed to overcome large water depths and leverage the abundant wind resource in deep seas. However, wind-wave misalignment can occur depending on the weather conditions, and most megawatt (MW)-class turbines are horizontal-axis wind turbines subjected to yaw errors. Therefore, the power performance and dynamic response of super-large FOWTs exposed simultaneously to these external conditions must be analyzed. In this study, several scenarios combining wind-wave misalignment and yaw error were considered. The IEA 15 MW reference FOWT (v1.1.2) and OpenFAST (v3.4.1) were used to perform numerical simulations. The results show that the power performance was affected more significantly by the yaw error; therefore, the generator power reduction and variability increased significantly. However, the dynamic response was affected more significantly by the wind-wave misalignment increased; thus, the change in the platform 6-DOF and tower loads (top and base) increased significantly. These results can be facilitate improvements to the power performance and structural integrity of FOWTs during the design process.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• 제23권3호
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• pp.231-241
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• 2017

The purpose of this study was to analyze traffic safety assessments for fishing vessels near the southwest offshore wind farm. This study applied a collision model for safety assessment. It also involved a spatiotemporal analysis of vessels engaged in fishing to identify fishing hotspots around the offshore wind farm. This study used data from fishing vessel location transmission devices gathered over 1 year in 2014. As a result, in September, when the average number of vessels engaged in fishing is high, 62 ships were operating in fishing section 184-6 and 55 ships in section 184-6. In addition, in fishing sections 184-8 and 192-2, where an offshore wind farm was located, there were 55 and 38 ships operating, respectively. As the recovery period for a seaway near wind farm turbines is 55 years, it was determined that safety measures are required in order to reduce collision frequency while allowing fishing vessels to navigate through offshore wind farms. Meanwhile, the return period of Seaway B between the groups of generators considered was 184 years. A safety zone for offshore wind farms should be installed covering a distance of at least 0.3 NM from the boundary of turbines. Then, the collision return period was derived to be close to 100 years. Through this traffic safety assessment, it has been concluded that such measures would help prevent marine accidents.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제18권3호
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• pp.267-279
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• 2014

Hydrodynamic analyses of classic and truss spar platforms for floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) were performed in the frequency domain, by considering coupling effects of the structure and its mooring system. Based on the Morison equation and Diffraction theory, different wave loads over various frequency ranges and underlying hydrodynamic equations were calculated. Then, Response Amplitude Operators (RAOs) of 6 DOF motions were obtained through the coupled hydrodynamic frequency domain analysis of classic and truss spar-type FOWTs. Truss spar platform had better heave motion performance and less weight than classic spar, while the hydrostatic stability did not show much difference between the two spar platforms.

• Wind and Structures
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• 제18권2호
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• pp.117-134
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• 2014

It is believed that offshore wind farms may satisfy an increasing portion of the energy demand in the next years. This paper presents a comparative study of the fatigue performances of tripod and jacket steel support structures for offshore wind turbines in waters of intermediate depth (20-50 m). A reference site at a water depth of 45 m in the North Atlantic Ocean is considered. The tripod and jacket support structures are conceived according to typical current design. The fatigue behavior is assessed in the time domain under combined stochastic wind and wave loading and the results are compared in terms of a lifetime damage equivalent load.

• Journal of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea
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• 제52권3호
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• pp.171-179
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• 2015

Usually, in case of wind turbines on land, there are a lot of constraints for installation such as the insufficient installation space and noise pollution. On March 11, 2011, a nuclear leakage accident occurred due to the tsunami caused by the earthquake in Japan and then there have been a rapidly growing interest in floating offshore wind turbines. In this study, an optimization of the substructure of a semi-submersible type floating offshore wind turbine was made. Design variables were set and design alternatives were fixed. UOU-FAST was used for motion analysis in combined environmental conditions of waves and wind. Response Amplitude Operators(RAOs) were compared between the design alternatives.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• 제13권5호
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• pp.737-745
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• 2013

Offshore wind farms are rapidly growing owing to their comparatively more stable wind conditions than onshore and land-based wind farms. The power capacity of offshore wind turbines has been increased to 5MW in order to capture a larger amount of wind energy, which results in an increase of each component's size. Furthermore, the weight of the marine turbine components installed in the nacelle directly influences the total mechanical design, as well as the operation and maintenance (O&M) costs. A reduction in the weight of the nacelle allows for cost-effective tower and foundation structures. On the other hand, longer transmission distances from an offshore wind turbine to the load leads to higher energy losses. In this regard, DC transmission is more useful than AC transmission in terms of efficiency because no reactive power is generated/consumed by DC transmission cables. This paper describes some of the challenges and difficulties faced in designing high-power-density power conversion systems (HPDPCSs) for offshore wind turbines. A new approach for high gain/high voltage systems is introduced using transformerless power conversion technologies. Finally, the proposed converter is evaluated in terms of step-up conversion ratio, device number, modulation, and costs.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• 제23권2호
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• pp.163-170
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• 2011

An optimal layout condition of the offshore wind turbines is studied by using the response surface analysis which is a kind of the design of experiments. Based on the assumption that total 36 turbines would be installed in the offshore wind farm, the number and distance of the rows and columns are used as the design variables and the efficiency decrease of power generation due to the wake decay by the interactions of turbines and the installation cost of the internal electric grid are considered as the objective functions of the response surface analysis for the layout design of turbines. Useful design information can be derived by analyzing the relationship between the design variables and target functions. It is found that the row number and the distance between rows should be minimized, and the optimal distance between columns should be estimated and adopted to the layout design within the specified design range in order to ensure the economics for the offshore wind farm.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국신재생에너지학회 2010년도 춘계학술대회 초록집
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• pp.180.2-180.2
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• 2010

Simulation technology for dynamic analysis of wind turbine is developed. The Aerodyn and the DAFUL are chosen for aerodynamic analysis and multi-body and flexible body dynamics respectively. Subroutines and variables of Aerodyn developed by NREL are analyzed with hub-height wind data, full field turbulent wind data and Airfoil data. The interface to perform coupled analysis between AeroDyn and DAFUL, GUI for modeling several parts of wind turbines are developed. The program will be extended to analyze the coupled analysis of aerodynamic and hydrodynamic behavior for floating offshore wind turbines.