Integrated design optimization of spar floating wind turbines

A linearized aero-hydro-servo-elastic floating wind turbine model is presented and used to perform integrated design optimization of the platform, tower, mooring system, and blade-pitch controller for a 10 MW spar floating wind turbine. Optimal design solutions are found using gradient-based optimization with analytic derivatives, considering both fatigue and extreme response constraints, where the objective function is a weighted combination of system cost and power quality. Optimization results show that local minima exist both in the soft-stiff and stiff-stiff range for the first tower bending mode and that a stiff-stiff tower design is needed to reach a solution that satisfies the fatigue constraints. The optimized platform has a relatively small diameter in the wave zone to limit the wave loads on the structure and an hourglass shape far below the waterline. The shape increases the restoring moment and natural frequency in pitch, which leads to improved behaviour in the low-frequency range. The importance of integrated optimization is shown in the solutions for the tower and blade-pitch control system, which are clearly affected by the simultaneous design of the platform. State-of-the-art nonlinear time-domain analyses show that the linearized model is conservative in general, but reasonably accurate in capturing trends, suggesting that the presented methodology is suitable for preliminary integrated design calculations.     

Model test investigation of a spar floating wind turbine

Several floating wind turbine designs whose hull designs reflect those used in offshore petroleum industry have emerged as leading candidates for the future development of offshore wind farms. This article presents the research findings from a model basin test program that investigated the dynamic response of a 1:50 scale model OC3 spar floating wind turbine concept designed for a water depth of 200 m. In this study the rotor was allowed to rotate freely with the wind speed and this approach eliminated some of the undesirable effects of controlling wind turbine rotational speed that were observed in earlier studies. The quality of the wind field developed by an array of fans was investigated as to its uniformity and turbulence intensity. Additional calibration tests were performed to characterize various components that included establishing the baseline wind turbine tower frequencies, stiffness of the delta type mooring system and free decay response behaviour. The assembled system was then studied under a sequence of wind and irregular wave scenarios to reveal the nature of the coupled response behaviour. The wind loads were found to have an obvious influence on the surge, heave and pitch behaviour of the spar wind turbine system. It was observed from the experimental measurements that bending moment at the top of the support tower is dominated by the 1P oscillation component and somewhat influenced by the incoming wave. Further it was determined that the axial rotor thrust and tower-top shear force have similar dynamic characteristics both dominated by tower’s first mode of vibration under wind-only condition while dominated by the incident wave field when experiencing wind-wave loading. The tensions measured in the mooring lines resulting from either wave or wind-wave excitations were influenced by the surge/pitch and heave couplings and the wind loads were found to have a clear influence on the dynamic responses of the mooring system.     

半潜型浮式风机运动特征及系泊系统的研究

近年来海上浮式风机的研究备受关注,安全可靠的系泊系统将保证风机在风、浪、流等复杂环境荷载作用下稳定运行,准确合理地描述风机运动将为评估风机发电效率提供支持。以半潜型浮式风机的系泊系统为研究对象,基于经典悬链线理论,采用准静态分析法提出一套系泊系统的设计方法。通过坐标变换,得到风轮真实的俯仰运动用于计算风机的动力效应及评定其发电效率。采用动力法分析了系泊系统锚链的导缆孔位置、预张力大小、锚链间夹角等参数对风机系统发电效率、浮式平台运动性能和系泊锚链张力的影响,得到了浮式平台迎风面俯仰倾角、水平偏移及锚链张力随参数的变化规律,为半潜型浮式风机系泊系统的设计提供了参考。     

Non-linear dynamic analysis of the response of moored floating structures

The complexity of the dynamic response of offshore marine structures requires advanced simulations tools for the accurate assessment of the seakeeping behaviour of these devices. The aim of this work is to present a new time-domain model for solving the dynamics of moored floating marine devices, specifically offshore wind turbines, subjected to non-linear environmental loads. The paper first introduces the formulation of the second-order wave radiation-diffraction solver, designed for calculating the wave-floater interaction. Then, the solver of the mooring dynamics, based on a non-linear Finite Element Method (FEM) approach, is presented. Next, the procedure developed for coupling the floater dynamics model with the mooring model is described. Some validation examples of the developed models, and comparisons among different mooring approaches, are presented. Finally, a study of the OC3 floating wind turbine concept is performed to analyze the influence of the mooring model in the dynamics of the platform and the tension in the mooring lines. The work comes to the conclusion that the coupling of a dynamic mooring model along with a second-order wave radiation-diffraction solver can offer realistic predictions of the floating wind turbine performance.     

浮式海上风力机运动性能和锚泊系统(英文)

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.     

单柱式浮式风力机动力响应数值与试验分析

以200 m作业水深的5 MW OC3单柱式浮式风力机为研究对象,采用FAST程序对其在不同海况下的运动进行全耦合时历数值计算,并与采用1∶50缩尺比模型试验所得时历结果进行对比,通过时域以及频域方法对平台主要自由度运动以及系泊拉力进行分析。研究发现:垂向运动带来的自由面记忆效应较纵向和横向小;悬链线式模型所能提供的系泊拉力较张紧式系泊提供的拉力小;风浪联合作用下,风载荷主要激励低频固有频率运动,波浪载荷则主要激励波频运动;平台纵荡和纵摇运动受系泊系统的影响较大,而垂荡运动则不受系泊系统的影响。     

Experimental field study of floater motion effects on a main bearing in a full-scale spar floating wind turbine

In this paper we present a full-scale experimental field study of the effects of floater motion on a main bearing in a 6 MW turbine on a spar-type floating substructure. Floating wind turbines are necessary to access the full offshore wind power potential, but the characteristics of their operation leave a gap with respect to the rapidly developing empirical knowledge on operation of bottom-fixed turbines. Larger wind turbines are one of the most important contributions to reducing cost of energy, but challenge established drivetrain layouts, component size envelopes and analysis methods. We have used fibre optic strain sensor arrays to measure circumferential strain in the stationary ring in a main bearing. Strain data have been analysed in the time domain and the frequency domain and compared with data on environmental loads, floating turbine motion and turbine operation. The results show that the contribution to fluctuating strain from in-plane bending strain is two orders of magnitude larger than that from membrane strain. The fluctuating in-plane bending strain is the result of cyclic differences between blade bending moments, both in and out of the rotor plane, and is driven by wind loads and turbine rotation. The fluctuating membrane strain appears to be the result of both axial load from thrust, because of the bearing and roller geometry, and radial loads on the rotating bearing ring from total out-of-plane bending moments in the three blades. The membrane strain shows a contribution from slow-varying wind forces and floating turbine pitch motion. However, as the total fluctuating strain is dominated by the intrinsic effects of blade bending moments in these turbines, the relative effect of floater motion is very small. Mostly relevant for the intrinsic membrane strain, sum and difference frequencies appear in the measured responses as the result of nonlinear system behaviour. This is an important result with respect to turbine modelling and simulation, where global structural analyses and local drivetrain analyses are frequently decoupled.     

风机塔架与叶片相互作用的数值模拟(英文)

Numerical simulations of wind turbine blade-tower interaction by using the open source OpenFOAM tools coupled with arbitrary mesh interface(AMI) method were presented.The governing equations were the unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes(RANS) which were solved by the pimpleDyMFoam solver,and the AMI method was employed to handle mesh movements.The National Renewable Energy Laboratory(NREL) phase VI wind turbine in upwind configuration was selected for numerical tests with different incoming wind speeds(5,10,15,and 25 m/s) at a fixed blade pitch and constant rotational speed.Detailed numerical results of vortex structure,time histories of thrust,and pressure distribution on the blade and tower were presented.The findings show that the wind turbine tower has little effect on the whole aerodynamic performance of an upwind wind turbine,while the rotating rotor will induce an obvious cyclic drop in the front pressure of the tower.Also,strong interaction of blade tip vortices with separation from the tower was observed.     

Experimental study of the state-of-the-art offshore system integrating a floating offshore wind turbine with a steel fish farming cage

An innovative offshore system integrating a floating offshore wind turbine with a steel fish farming cage (FOWT-SFFC) has recently been developed by the two leading authors for offshore wind and aquaculture industry. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dynamic responses of FOWT-SFFC subjected to simultaneous wind and wave actions in the harsh South China Sea environment by a series of model tests. The tests are conducted at the Tsinghua Ocean Engineering Basin with Froude scale of 1:30. In this paper, the similarity law and setup of model tests are given first. Then a series of calibration tests and identification tests are carried out to validate the capacity of wind generator and wave maker, and to identify the vibration frequencies of tower, the stiffness of mooring system, natural periods and system damping, motion response amplitude operators (RAOs) of FOWT-SFFC, and thrust-speed performance of the turbine in wave basin. After that, seakeeping tests are implemented for random waves, followed by a sequence of load cases including normal operating and extreme conditions. Constant wind speeds and random wind speeds are respectively considered in load combinations. The experimental results affirm the excellent seakeeping and dynamic performance of FOWT-SFFC. Existence of metal fish nets increases the damping of foundation's 6 degree-of-freedoms motions. Generally, the influence of nets on the dynamic responses is insignificant in wind sea states.     

Dynamic analysis of a dual-spar floating offshore wind farm with shared moorings in extreme environmental conditions

The concept of a shared mooring system was proposed to reduce mooring and anchoring costs. Shared moorings also add complexity to the floating offshore wind farm system and pose design challenges. To understand the system dynamics, this paper presents a dynamic analysis for a dual-spar floating offshore wind farm with a shared mooring system in extreme environmental conditions. First, a numerical model of the floating offshore wind farm was established in a commercial simulation tool. Then, time-domain simulations were performed for the parked wind farm under extreme wind and wave conditions. A sensitivity study was carried out to investigate the influence of loading directions and shared line mooring properties. To highlight the influence of the shared line, the results were compared to those of a single spar floating wind turbine, and larger platform motions and higher tension loads in single lines are observed for the wind farm with shared moorings. The loading direction affects the platform motions and mooring response of the floating offshore wind farm. Comparing the investigated loading directions to the 0-deg loading direction, the variation of mean mooring tension at the fairlead is up to 84% for single lines and 16% for the shared line. The influence of the shared line properties in the platform motions and the structural responses is limited. These findings improve understanding of the dynamic characteristics of floating offshore wind farms with a shared mooring system.     

海上半潜式浮式风机平台系泊系统对比研究

选取5MW-OC4深水半潜式浮式风机平台为参考模型,利用AQWA软件建立半潜式浮式风机平台模型,在频域范围内计算浮式风机平台运动响应,得到平台幅频响应曲线,以验证数值分析的可靠性。选取3种浮式风机平台系泊系统,对比研究系泊系统改变对浮式风机平台运动响应的影响规律,同时分析极端环境条件下单缆失效对浮式平台运动响应及系泊缆张力的影响。计算结果对浮式风机平台系泊系统的优化设计有一定的参考意义。     

海上风力发电机组支撑结构动力响应特性研究

支撑结构设计是大型海上风电机组设计的重要部分。文章分析了海上风电机组的各种环境载荷,并以3MW风力机组为例计算其所受环境载荷,包括作用在支撑结构顶端的由风机叶轮转动引起的水平轴向力、作用在塔筒上的风载荷以及作用在基础上的海流、海浪载荷,并采用非线性弹簧来模拟基础与海底土层之间的相互作用。在考虑风轮影响情况下,利用有限元法对支撑结构进行了模态分析。最后,分析了环境载荷作用下支撑结构的动态响应。计算结果表明,在对海上风力发电机组进行动态响应计算时,环境载荷之间的相互耦合作用不能忽略。     

Dynamic responses analysis of a 5 MW spar-type floating wind turbine under accidental ship-impact scenario

Ship impact against offshore floating wind turbine (OFWT) has been identified as one of the major hazards with the development of OFWTs. The dynamic responses of OFWTs under ship impact should be taken into consideration during the design phase. This paper addresses a study on the dynamic responses of an OFWT in ship collision scenarios. Firstly, a mathematical model for external mechanism of ship-OFWT collision scenario is developed. Secondly, this model is combined with an in-house programme, DARwind, which can be used to predict nonlinear dynamic responses of whole OFWT system in time-domain. With the newly combined analysis tool, simulation cases for different scenarios are conducted to investigate the nonlinear dynamic responses of OFWT system, including the cases of still water condition, wave-only condition and wind-wave condition. It is shown that in still water condition, the ship impact will more obviously change the responses of motions and mooring system, compared with those in wave and wave-wind conditions. In the wave-only condition, these motions responses of platform are suppressed by wave effect, but the tower vibration and tower top deformation are sensitive to ship collision. For the wave-wind combined condition, the motions increment in surge and pitch due to ship collision becomes smaller than that of wave-only condition, but yaw motion has a considerable variation compared with those of the other two conditions. Additionally, the blade tip deformation increment due to ship collision are analyzed and it is found that the edgewise tip deformation got more obvious increment than that of flapwise. To further asses the safety of OFWT, the acceleration at nacelle are analyzed because some equipment might be sensitive to acceleration. The analysis results indicate that even though the OFWT structure doesn't get critical damage by ship impact, the equipment inside may still fail to work due to the high value of acceleration induced by ship impact. The research outcomes can benefit the safety design of OFWT in the engineering practice.     

Semi-submersible wind turbine hull shape design for a favorable system response behavior

Floating offshore wind turbines are a novel technology, which has reached, with the first wind farm in operation, an advanced state of development. The question of how floating wind systems can be optimized to operate smoothly in harsh wind and wave conditions is the subject of the present work. An integrated optimization was conducted, where the hull shape of a semi-submersible, as well as the wind turbine controller were varied with the goal of finding a cost-efficient design, which does not respond to wind and wave excitations, resulting in small structural fatigue and extreme loads.The optimum design was found to have a remarkably low tower-base fatigue load response and small rotor fore-aft amplitudes. Further investigations showed that the reason for the good dynamic behavior is a particularly favorable response to first-order wave loads: The floating wind turbine rotates in pitch-direction about a point close to the rotor hub and the rotor fore-aft motion is almost unaffected by the wave excitation. As a result, the power production and the blade loads are not influenced by the waves. A comparable effect was so far known for Tension Leg Platforms but not for semi-submersible wind turbines. The methodology builds on a low-order simulation model, coupled to a parametric panel code model, a detailed viscous drag model and an individually tuned blade pitch controller. The results are confirmed by the higher-fidelity model FAST. A new indicator to express the optimal behavior through a single design criterion has been developed.     

基于锚泊系统的半潜式海洋平台定位方法研究

以工作水深1200m、8缆系泊的半潜式海洋平台为对象,研究其系统定位方法,通过改变锚泊系统系泊缆长度来实现平台的定位。建立反映半潜式海洋平台锚泊系统动力响应的多目标优化模型,通过求解得到船体目标位移与最优系泊缆长度,借助多学科软件iSIGHT,通过开发程序接口,调用水动力分析软件ANSYS/AQWA求解器求解,实现了半潜式平台锚泊系统的结构动力响应优化设计。对半潜式平台进行风、浪、流联合作用下的水动力耦合分析,实时控制系泊缆长度来实现平台的定位并保证平台的稳定性。     

非线性混合海况下近海风机塔筒底部载荷的动力响应

本文主要研究在非线性混合海况(即风浪和涌浪组合海况)下,以NREL 5MW_Baseline Monopile近海风机为研究对象,对其塔筒底部(基线)所受到的剪力和弯矩载荷的动力响应进行仿真。在近海风机的时域仿真中,选用了Ochi-Hubble六参数波浪谱,并编制了该谱的程序嵌入到FAST中进行编译。计算过程中,共进行了20次10 min的仿真分析。对于得到的短期载荷,给出了波高程,塔筒底部首尾向剪力和弯矩在线性与非线性不规则波作用下的时程曲线对比图。采用分块最大值法对每一次的短期载荷提取极值,并基于20次仿真所得的极值,给出了塔筒底部首尾向剪力与弯矩在线性与非线性不规则波作用下的超越概率曲线对比图。研究表明,在非线性混合海况下进行近海风机塔筒底部载荷的动力响应研究,计算结果对工程实际应用具有指导意义。     

半潜型浮式风机平台研究综述

介绍了半潜型浮式风机的发展现状,基于已有的概念设计方案提出了半潜型浮式风机平台的初步设计流程图和优化设计方向,综述了半潜型浮式风机平台在稳定性、水动力性能和强度分析等性能方面的研究,提出了在这些研究领域中有待进一步解决的问题。结果表明,目前半潜型浮式风机在技术上已是可行的,但高成本制约了大规模应用,因此需在技术和成本上进一步优化。     

基于变结构控制的风力发电变浆距系统

为风力发电变浆距系统设计了滑模变结构控制器。针对风力机变浆距系统的非线性、参数变化等特性,充分利用变结构控制对被控对象的模型误差、对象参数的变化以及外部干扰有较良好的不敏感性的优点,在充分考虑风力机变浆距系统的阻尼系数后,设计了滑模变结构控制器,最后通过系统仿真,表明了所提出控制方案的有效性。     

6级海况下波浪补偿装置平台的机构优化设计

为缩短波浪补偿装置平台的研发周期,以某型号风电安装船为研究对象,根据我国海洋部门提出的东海区域谱密度公式,运用Matlab软件分别模拟出6级海况下的波普密度曲线、波倾角变化曲线、该型号风力发电船的横摇、纵摇和升沉运动曲线.具体以风力发电船在6级海况下的横摇、纵摇和升沉运动范围约束平台机构的运动范围,采用遗传算法对平台机构进行优化,分别设定不同机构参数为目标函数进行局部优化,最终为平台结构的合理化设计提供数据支持.     

Truss Spar平台总体结构强度分析

在南海百年一遇海况条件下,综合考虑风、浪、流载荷的联合作用,在频域范围内计算平台的纵摇和横摇极值响应以及锚缆的张力。根据不同浪向下的结构应力谱分析确定的设计波参数,基于三维势流理论和Morison公式计算一阶波浪力,采用规范推荐的公式计算风、流载荷。在准静力条件下,根据ABS规范推荐的强度准则,针对精细化的混合有限元结构模型进行总体强度分析。