Floating Wind Turbines

Abstract

This article discusses the functioning of floating wind turbines. The engineering requirements for the design of floating offshore wind turbines are extensive. Wind turbine design tools usually consist of an aerodynamic model (for flow around the blades) coupled with a structural code. Aero-elastic models used in the design of fixed turbines calculate all the necessary loading parameters, from turbine thrust and power generation, to blade and tower deflections. The design of floating structures usually involves hydrodynamics tools such as WAMIT Inc.’s software for studying wave interactions with vessels and platforms, or Principia’s DIODORE, to predict the hydrodynamic quantities, such as added mass, damping and wave exciting forces, which are used as a kernel in the time domain simulations. In marine projects, design tools typically need to be validated against model tests in a wave tank or basin. Such work is performed frequently, and scaling laws are very well defined.