• Wind and Structures
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.525-541
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• 2016

An offshore wind turbine supported by a spar buoy floating platform is the subject of this study on tower and rotor extreme loads. The platform, with a 120-meter draft and assumed to be sited in 320 meters of water, supports a 5 MW wind turbine. A baseline model for this turbine developed at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is employed in stochastic response simulations. The support platform, along with the mooring system consisting of three catenary lines, chosen for loads modeling, is based on the "Hywind" floating wind turbine concept. Our interest lies in gaining an understanding of the dynamic coupling between the support platform motion and the turbine loads. We first investigate short-term response statistics using stochastic simulation for a range of different environmental wind and wave conditions. From this study, we identify a few "controlling" environmental conditions for which long-term turbine load statistics and probability distributions are established.

• International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.559-579
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• 2015

An experimental study of the effect of mooring systems on the dynamics of a SPAR buoy-type floating offshore wind turbine is presented. The effects of the Center of Gravity (COG), mooring line spring constant, and fairlead location on the turbine's motion in response to regular waves are investigated. Experimental results show that for a typical mooring system of a SPAR buoy-type Floating Offshore Wind Turbine (FOWT), the effect of mooring systems on the dynamics of the turbine can be considered negligible. However, the pitch decreases notably as the COG increases. The COG and spring constant of the mooring line have a negligible effect on the fairlead displacement. Numerical simulation and sensitivity analysis show that the wind turbine motion and its sensitivity to changes in the mooring system and COG are very large near resonant frequencies. The test results can be used to validate numerical simulation tools for FOWTs.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.184.1-184.1
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• 2010

Floating wind turbines have been suggested as a feasible solution for going further offshore into deeper waters. However, floating platforms cause additional unsteady motions induced by wind and wave conditions, so that it is difficult to predict annual energy output of wind turbines by using conventional power prediction method. That is because sectional inflow condition on a rotor plane is varied by unsteady motion of floating platforms. Therefore, aerodynamic simulation using Vortex Lattice Method(VLM) were used to investigate the influence of motion on the aerodynamic performance of a floating offshore wind turbine. Simulation with individual motion of offshore platform were compared to the case of onshore platform and carried out according to the wave height and the wave angular frequency.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2009.11a
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• pp.466-472
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• 2009

Offshore wind energy is gaining more and more attention during this decade. For the countries with coast sites, the water depth is significantly large. This causes attention to the floating wind turbine. Offshore wind turbines are designed and analyzed using comprehensive simulation codes that account for the coupled dynamics of the wind inflow, aerodynamics, elasticity and controls of the wind turbine, along with the incident waves, sea current, hydrodynamics, and foundation dynamics of the support structures. In this work, a three-bladed 5MW upwind wind turbine installed on a floating spar buoy in 320m of water is studied by using of fully coupled aero-hydro-servo-elastic simulation tool. Specifications of the structures are chosen from the OC3 (Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration) under "IEA Wind Annex XXIII-subtask2". The primary external conditions due to wind and waves are simulated. Certain design load case is investigated.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.62.1-62.1
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• 2011

The wind can be stronger and steadier further from shore, but water depth is also deeper. Then bottom-mounted towers are not feasible, and floating turbines are more competitive. There are additional motions in an offshore floating wind turbine, which results in a more complex aerodynamics operating environment for the turbine rotor. Many aerodynamic analysis methods rely on blade element momentum theory to investigate aerodynamic load, which are not valid in vortex ring state that occurs in floating wind turbine operations. So, vortex lattice method, which is more physical, was used in this analysis. Floating platform's prescribed positions were calculated in the time domain by using floating system RAO and waves that are simulated using JONSWAP spectrum. The average value of in-plane aerodynamic force increase, but the value of out-of-plane force decrease. The maximum variation aerodynamic force abruptly increases in severe sea state. Especially, as the pitch motion of the barge platform is large, this motion should be avoided to decrease the aerodynamic load variation.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.333-350
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• 2017

Differing from the fixed-type, the dynamic motion of floating-type offshore wind turbines is very sensitive to wind and wave excitations. Thus, the sensing and monitoring of its motion is important to evaluate the dynamic responses to the external excitation. In this context, a monitoring system for sensing and processing the wind-induced dynamic motion of spar-type floating offshore wind turbine is developed in this study. It is developed by integrating a 1/00 scale model of 2.5MW spar-type floating offshore wind turbine, water basin equipped with the wind generator, sensing and data acquisition systems, real-time CompactRIO controller and monitoring program. The scale model with the upper rotatable blades is installed within the basin by means of three mooring lines, and its translational and rotational motions are detected by 3-axis inclinometer and accelerometers and gyroscope. The detected motion signals are processed using a real-time controller CompactRIO to calculate the acceleration and tilting angle of nacelle and the attitude of floating platform. The developed monitoring system is demonstrated and validated by measuring and evaluating the time histories and trajectories of nacelle and platform motions for three different wind velocities and for eight different fairlead positions.

• Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.455-463
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• 2012

In this study, we calculate dynamic constrained force of tower top and blade root of a floating offshore wind turbine. The floating offshore wind turbine is multibody system which consists of a floating platform, a tower, a nacelle, and a hub and three blades. All of these parts are regarded as a rigid body with six degree-of-freedom(DOF). The platform and the tower are connected with fixed joint, and the tower, the nacelle, and the hub are successively connected with revolute joint. The hub and three blades are connected with fixed joint. The recursive formulation is adopted for constructing the equations of motion for the floating wind turbine. The non-linear hydrostatic force, the linear hydrodynamic force, the aerodynamic force, the mooring force, and gravitational forces are considered as external forces. The dynamic load at the tower top, rotor shaft, and blade root of the floating wind turbine are simulated in time domain by solving the equations of motion numerically. From the simulation results, the mutual effects of the dynamic response between the each part of the floating wind turbine are discussed and can be used as input data for the structural analysis of the floating offshore wind turbine.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.115-120
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• 2011

The dynamic responses of a 5 MW wind turbine lifted by a floating crane with two elastic booms are analyzed. Dynamic equations of motions of a multibody system that consists of a floating crane, two elastic booms, and a wind turbine are derived. The six-degree-of-freedom (DOF) motions for the floating crane and the wind turbine are considered in the equations of motions. The hydrostatic force, the hydrodynamic force due to a regular wave, the mooring force, the wire rope force, and the gravitational force are considered as external forces. By solving the equations numerically, the dynamic responses of cargo are simulated. The simulation results are compared with those in the case of one elastic boom. Finally, the dynamic responses of the wind turbine lifted by the floating crane are analyzed under regular wave condition.

• Journal of Wind Energy
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.57-64
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• 2018

To maximize power generation and reduce the construction cost of a commercial utility-grade wind turbine, the size of the wind turbine should be large. The initial design of the 12 MW University of Ulsan(UOU) Floating Offshore Wind Turbine(FOWT) was carried out based on the 5 MW National Renewable Energy Laboratory(NREL) offshore wind turbine model. The existing 5 MW NREL offshore wind turbines have been expanded to 12 MW UOU FOWT using the geometric law of similarity and then redesigned for each factor. The resonance of the tower is the most important dynamic responses of a wind turbine, and it should be designed by avoiding resonance due to cyclic load during turbine operations. The natural frequency of the tower needs to avoid being within the frequency range corresponding to the rotational speed of the blades, 1P, and the blade passing frequency, 3P. To avoid resonance, vibration can be reduced by modifying the stiffness or mass. The direct expansion of the 5 MW wind turbine support structure caused a resonance problem with the tower of the 12 MW FOWT and the tower length and diameter was adjusted to avoid a match of the first natural frequency and 3P excitation of the tower.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Industry Convergence
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.421-431
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• 2023

Recently, the destructive power of typhoons is continuously increasing due to the influence of global warming. In a situation where the installation of floating wind turbines is increasing around the world, concerns about the huge loss and collapse of floating offshore wind turbines due to strong typhoons are deepening. Regarding to the safe operation of the floating offshore wind turbine, the development of a new type of disconnectable mooring system is required. A new fairlead chain stopper considered in this study is devised to more easily attach or detach the floating offshore wind turbine with mooring lines comparing to other disconnectable mooring apparatuses. In order to investigate the structural safety of the initial design of fairlead chain stopper that can be applied to MW-class floating type offshore wind turbine, scale-down structural models were produced using a 3-D printer and structural tests were performed on the models. For the structural tests of the scale-down models, tensile specimens of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene material that was used in the 3-D printing were prepared, and the material properties were evaluated by performing the tensile tests. The finite element analysis of fairlead chain stopper was performed by applying the material properties obtained from the tensile tests and the same load and boundary conditions as in the scale-down model structural tests. Through the finite element analysis, the structural weak parts on the fairlead chain stopper were reviewed. The structural model tests were performed considering the main load conditions of fairlead chain stopper, and the test results were compared to the finite element analysis. Through the results of this study, it was possible to experimentally verify the structural safety of the initial design of fairlead chain stopper. It is also judged that the study results can be usefully used to improve the structural strength of fairlead chain stopper in a detailed design stage.