Design Optimization and Coupled Dynamics Analysis of an Offshore Wind Turbine with a Single Swivel Connected Tether

Jieyan Chen and Chengxi Li
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Jieyan Chen: Department of Ocean Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77084, USA
Chengxi Li: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 14, 1-26

Abstract: The increased interest in renewable wind energy has stimulated many offshore wind turbine concepts. This paper presents a design optimization and a coupled dynamics analysis of a platform with a single tether anchored to the seabed supported for a 5 MW baseline wind turbine. The design is based on a concept named SWAY. We conduct a parametric optimization process that accounts for important design considerations in the static and dynamic view, such as the stability, natural frequency, performance requirements, and cost feasibility. Through these optimization processes, we obtain and present the optimized model. We then establish the fully coupled aero-hydro-servo-elastic model by the time-domain simulation tool FAST (Fatigue, Aerodynamics, Structures, and Turbulence) with the hydrodynamic coefficients from an indoor program HydroGen. We conduct extensive time-domain simulations with various wind and wave conditions to explore the effects of wind speed and wave significant height on the dynamic performance of the optimized SWAY model in various water depths. The swivel connection between the platform and tether is the most special design for the SWAY model. Thus, we compare the performance of models with different tether connection designs, based on the platform motions, nacelle velocity, nacelle accelerations, resonant behaviors, and the damping of the coupled systems. The results of these comparisons demonstrate the advantage of the optimized SWAY model with the swivel connection. From these analyses, we prove that the optimized SWAY model is a good candidate for deep water deployment.

Keywords: renewable energy; offshore wind turbine; design optimization; coupled dynamics analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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