• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.281-312
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• 2018

Characteristics of a turbulence wind model control the magnitude and frequency distribution of wind loading on floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs), and an in-depth understanding of how wind spectral characteristics affect the responses, and ultimately the design cost of system components, is in shortage in the offshore wind industry. Wind spectrum models as well as turbulence intensity curves recommended by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) have characteristics derived from land-based sites, and have been widely adopted in offshore wind projects (in the absence of site-specific offshore data) without sufficient assessment of design implications. In this paper, effects of wind spectra and turbulence intensities on the strength or extreme responses of a 5 MW floating offshore wind turbine are investigated. The impact of different wind spectral parameters on the extreme blade loads, nacelle accelerations, towertop motions, towerbase loads, platform motions and accelerations, and mooring line tensions are presented and discussed. Results highlight the need to consider the appropriateness of a wind spectral model implemented in the strength design of FOWT structures.

• 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.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.79-99
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• 2018

The effects of BPC (blade pitch control) on FOWT (floating offshore wind turbine) motions and generated power are investigated by using a fully-coupled turbine-floater-mooring simulation program. In this regard, two example FOWTs, OC4-5MW semi-submersible FOWT and KRISO four-3MW-units FOWT, are selected since the numerical simulations of those two FOWTs have been verified against experiments in authors' previous studies. Various simulations are performed changing BPC natural frequency (BPCNF), BPC damping ratio (BPCDR), and wind speeds. Through the numerical simulations, it was demonstrated that negative damping can happen for platform pitch motions and its influences are affected by BPCNF, BPCDR, and wind speeds. If BPCNF is significantly larger than platform-pitch natural frequency, the pitch resonance can be very serious due to the BPC-induced negative-damping effects, which should be avoided in the FOWT design. If wind speed is significantly higher than the rated wind velocity, the negative damping effects start to become reduced. Other important findings are also given through systematic sensitivity investigations.

• The KSFM Journal of Fluid Machinery
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.14-21
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• 2015

Design lifetime of a wind turbine is required to be at least 20 years. The most important step to ensure the deign is to evaluate the loads on the wind turbine as accurately as possible. In this study, extreme design load of a offshore wind turbine using Garrad Hassan (GH) Bladed and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) FAST codes are calculated considering structural dynamic loads. These wind turbine aeroelastic analysis codes are high efficiency for the rapid numerical analysis scheme. But, these codes are mainly based on the mathematical and semi-empirical theories such as unsteady blade element momentum (UBEM) theory, generalized dynamic wake (GDW), dynamic inflow model, dynamic stall model, and tower influence model. Thus, advanced CFD-dynamic coupling method is also applied to conduct cross verification with FAST and GH Bladed codes. If the unsteady characteristics of wind condition are strong, such as extreme design wind condition, it is possible to occur the error in analysis results. The NREL 5 MW offshore wind turbine model as a benchmark case is practically considered for the comparison of calculated designed loads. Computational analyses for typical design load conditions such as normal turbulence model (NTM), normal wind profile (NWP), extreme operation gust (EOG), and extreme direction change (EDC) have been conducted and those results are quantitatively compared with each other. It is importantly shown that there are somewhat differences as maximum amount of 18% among numerical tools depending on the design load cases.

• Wind and Structures
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• v.29 no.6
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• pp.431-440
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• 2019

The aim of this study was to explore the influence of structure coupling effect on structural damping of blade based on the blade vibration characteristic. For this purpose, the scaled blade model of NREL 5 MW offshore wind turbine was processed and employed in the wind tunnel test to validate the reliability of theoretical and numerical models. The attenuation curves of maximum displacement and the varying curves of equivalent damping coefficient of the blade under the rated condition were respectively compared and analyzed by constructing single blade model and whole machine model. The attenuation law of blade dynamic response was obtained and the structure coupling effect was proved to exert a significant influence on the equivalent damping coefficient. The results indicate that the attenuation trend of the maximum displacement response curve of the single blade varies more obviously with the increase of elastic modulus as compared to that under the structure coupling effect. In contrast to the single blade model, the varying curve of equivalent damping coefficient with the period is relatively steep for the whole machine model. The findings are of great significance to guide the structure design and material selection for wind turbine blades.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Advanced Composite Structures
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.37-42
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• 2014

Wind turbine tower has a very important role in wind turbine system as one of the renewable energy that has been attracting attention worldwide recently. Due to the growth of wind power market, advance and development of offshore wind system and getting huger capacity is inevitable. As a result, the vibration is generated at wind turbine tower by receiving constantly dynamic loads such as wind load and wave load. Among these dynamic loads, the mechanical load caused by the rotation of the blade is able to make relatively periodic load to the wind turbine tower. So natural frequency of the wind turbine tower should be designed to avoid the rotation frequency of the rotor according to the design criteria to avoid resonance. Currently research of the wind turbine tower, the precise research does not be carried out because of simplifying the structure of the other upper and lower. In this study, the effect of blade modeling differences are to be analyzed in natural frequency of wind turbine tower.

• Journal of Wind Energy
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.22-32
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• 2014

The structural design of a wind turbine must show the verification of the structural integrity of all load-carrying components. Also, design load calculations shall be performed using appropriate and accurate methods. In this study, advanced numerical approach for the calculation of design loads based on unsteady computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is presented considering extreme design load conditions such as the extreme coherent gust (ECG) and the 50 year extreme operating gust (EOG). Unsteady aerodynamic loads are calculated based on Reynolds average Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations with shear-stress transport k-ω(SST k-ω) turbulent model. A full three-dimensional 5 MW offshore wind-turbine model with rotating blades, hub, nacelle, and tower configuration is practically considered and its aerodynamic interference effect among blades, nacelle, and tower is also accurately considered herein. Calculated blade loads based on unsteady CFD method with respect to blade azimuth angle are compared with those by NREL FAST code and physically investigated in detail.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.143-153
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• 2011

Offshore wind power(OWP) is one of the most promising renewable energy and gives higher output than onland one due to stronger and consistent wind in offshore. it offsets shortcoming of noise, spatial limit and less affects scenery, and can be built in larger size. Korea has plenty of offshore wind resources as it is surrounded by the sea in three directions. This review describes recent progress in offshore wind turbine and substructure technology. Market trend in local and overseas, Number of papers published and patents registered are analysed.

• Journal of the Korean Solar Energy Society
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• v.31 no.6
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• pp.57-65
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• 2011

The wake generated by a wind turbine has an effect on performance of a downstream wind turbine as well as mechanical loads. This paper investigated characteristics of fatigue load at the blade root due to the wake effects and quantitatively analyzed its effects at operating condition of a 5MW tripod offshore wind turbine using Bladed 4.1 software. The wake effects was studied the way the wake's center position move from the rotor center to the blade tip to the far-away position where the wake doesn't affect the wind turbine. When wake's center was located on the blade tip or the rotor center, damage equivalent fatigue load was higher than other positions. It was up to 10~14% compared to those of non-wake case. Results of this study would be helpful to design wind turbines and wind farms to have lifetimes more than 20 years of the wind turbine.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.1-16
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• 2012

Offshore wind turbines are complex structural and mechanical systems located in a highly demanding environment. This paper proposes a multi-level system approach for studying the structural behavior of the support structure of an offshore wind turbine. In accordance with this approach, a proper numerical modeling requires the adoption of a suitable technique in order to organize the qualitative and quantitative assessment in various sub-problems, which can be solved by means of sub-models at different levels of detail, both for the structural behavior and for the simulation of loads. Consequently, in a first place, the effects on the structural response induced by the uncertainty of the parameters used to describe the environmental actions and the finite element model of the structure are inquired. After that, a meso-level FEM model of the blade is adopted in order to obtain the detailed load stress on the blade/hub connection.