Screening of Available Tools for Dynamic Mooring Analysis of Wave Energy Converters

Jonas Bjerg Thomsen, Francesco Ferri and Jens Peter Kofoed
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Jonas Bjerg Thomsen: Department of Civil Engineering, Aalborg University, Thomas Manns Vej 23, Aalborg Ø 9220, Denmark
Francesco Ferri: Department of Civil Engineering, Aalborg University, Thomas Manns Vej 23, Aalborg Ø 9220, Denmark
Jens Peter Kofoed: Department of Civil Engineering, Aalborg University, Thomas Manns Vej 23, Aalborg Ø 9220, Denmark

Energies, 2017, vol. 10, issue 7, 1-18

Abstract: The focus on alternative energy sources has increased significantly throughout the last few decades, leading to a considerable development in the wave energy sector. In spite of this, the sector cannot yet be considered commercialized, and many challenges still exist, in which mooring of floating wave energy converters is included. Different methods for assessment and design of mooring systems have been described by now, covering simple quasi-static analysis and more advanced and sophisticated dynamic analysis. Design standards for mooring systems already exist, and new ones are being developed specifically forwave energy converter moorings, which results in other requirements to the chosen tools, since these often have been aimed at other offshore sectors. The present analysis assesses a number of relevant commercial software packages for full dynamic mooring analysis in order to highlight the advantages and drawbacks. The focus of the assessment is to ensure that the software packages are capable of fulfilling the requirements of modeling, as defined in design standards and thereby ensuring that the analysis can be used to get a certified mooring system. Based on the initial assessment, the two software packages DeepC and OrcaFlex are found to best suit the requirements. They are therefore used in a case study in order to evaluate motion and mooring load response, and the results are compared in order to provide guidelines for which software package to choose. In the present study, the OrcaFlex code was found to satisfy all requirements.

Keywords: mooring; station keeping; dynamic analysis; wave energy; OrcaFlex; DeepC (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: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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