Case study

Floating wind project support

We represented the interests of the wind turbine package lead for a floating wind technology demonstrator project.

Overview

On a recent project, we were representing the interests of the wind turbine package lead for a floating wind technology demonstrator project. The turbine manufacturer has yet to be selected, and as such, we are working alongside the floating foundation designer, topsides contractor, owners’ engineer and developer, to provide technical insight as to the likely behaviour of the wind turbine system and important design considerations on key interfaces (i.e. tower and transition piece to floating foundation).

Our model, developed in OrcaFlex, provides initial insight into overall expected system loads with appropriate consideration given to the design of key components (i.e. controller, RNA and tower) to ensure they are commercially representative. Specifically, we have considered the following in detail:

  • Expected overall mass for a tower sized for a ~10MW turbine;
  • Inner and outer diameter profiles for a commercially representative tower (sized at ~10MW);
  • Tower thickness profile for a commercially representative tower;
  • Extreme and fatigue load limits for a commercially representative tower;
  • Expected natural frequency for a commercially representative tower; and
  • Expected natural damping of the tower during normal operation.

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