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Motion performance and mooring system of a floating offshore wind turbine

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Abstract

The development of offshore wind farms was originally carried out in shallow water areas with fixed (seabed mounted) structures. However, countries with limited shallow water areas require innovative floating platforms to deploy wind turbines offshore in order to harness wind energy to generate electricity in deep seas. The performances of motion and mooring system dynamics are vital to designing a cost effective and durable floating platform. This paper describes a numerical model to simulate dynamic behavior of a new semi-submersible type floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) system. The wind turbine was modeled as a wind block with a certain thrust coefficient, and the hydrodynamics and mooring system dynamics of the platform were calculated by SESAM software. The effect of change in environmental conditions on the dynamic response of the system under wave and wind loading was examined. The results indicate that the semi-submersible concept has excellent performance and SESAM could be an effective tool for floating wind turbine design and analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Ocean Renewable Energy System, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin, 150001, China

    Jing Zhao, Liang Zhang & Haitao Wu

Authors
  1. Jing Zhao
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  2. Liang Zhang
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  3. Haitao Wu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jing Zhao.

Additional information

Foundation item: Supported by the 111 Project under Grant No.B07019, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant No.50979020.

Jing Zhao was born in 1983. She is a PhD candidate for at Harbin Engineering University. Her current research interests include foundation structure design and hydrodynamic load prediction of offshore wind turbines.

Liang Zhang was born in 1959. He is a professor at Harbin Engineering University. He is the director of the Institute of Ocean Renewable Energy Systems and the deputy director of the Deepwater Engineering Research Center. His current research interests include ship hydrodynamics, computational fluid dynamics, and ocean renewable energy system research and application.

Haitao Wu was born in 1986. He is a candidate for a doctor’s degree at Harbin Engineering Uninversity. His current research interests include fluid dynamics and offshore wind energy.

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Zhao, J., Zhang, L. & Wu, H. Motion performance and mooring system of a floating offshore wind turbine. J. Marine. Sci. Appl. 11, 328–334 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11804-012-1140-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11804-012-1140-3

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