Structural assessment of monopile-based support structures of offshore wind turbines for hydrogen production facilities

Ever since the commissioning of the first offshore wind farm in October 1991, the offshore wind market has experienced exponential growth all around the world. As more wind farms will be built offshore in the future, onshore grid connection and transmission capacity may not be sufficient to integrate this growing amount of offshore wind farms....

On the Assessment of Equivalent Hysteretic Damping on Offshore Wind Turbines Subjected to Seismic Excitations

The increasing global demand of renewable and clean energy has led to the exponential growth, development, and interest in the offshore wind energy industry and expansion towards earthquake-prone areas. Offshore wind turbine structures, typically supported by a tubular monopile foundation, are increasing in size to meet the increasing human...

3D FE-Informed Laboratory Soil Testing for the Design of Offshore Wind Turbine Monopiles

Based on advanced 3D finite element modelling, this paper analyses the stress paths experienced by soil elements in the vicinity of a monopile foundation for offshore wind turbines subjected to cyclic loading with the aim of informing soil laboratory testing in support of monopile foundation design. It is shown that the soil elements in front of...

Effects of a passive tuned mass damper on blade root impacts during the offshore mating process

Single-blade installation is a conventional method for installing blades on monopile-type offshore wind turbines. A jack-up crane vessel is commonly used, and individual blades are lifted to the tower top height and mated with the hub. The relative motions between the hub and blade root during the mating phase, partly due to wind-induced...

Effects of Wind-Wave Misalignment on a Wind Turbine Blade Mating Process: Impact Velocities, Blade Root Damages and Structural SafetyAssessment

Most wind turbine blades are assembled piece-by-piece onto the hub of a monopile-type offshore wind turbine using jack-up crane vessels. Despite the stable foundation of the lifting cranes, the mating process exhibits substantial relative responses amidst blade root and hub. These relative motions are combined effects of wave-induced monopile...

Capturing 3D Continuum Effects in a 1D Soil-Structure Interaction Model for Seismic Analysis of Offshore Wind Turbines

Offshore wind energy is considered a necessary energy resource, that may stimulate the transition from fossil fuels. Following the successful development in Western Europe, offshore wind is quickly gaining momentum in the Asia-Pacific region. At variance with North-Sea based offshore wind turbines (OWTs), structures installed in the Asia-Pacific...

Geotechnical aspects of offshore wind turbine dynamics from 3D non-linear soil-structure simulations

The development of the offshore wind industry is motivating substantial research efforts worldwide, where offshore wind turbines (OWTs) of increasing size are being installed in deeper water depths. Foundation design is a major factor affecting the structural performance of OWTs, with most installations founded to date on large-diameter...

Definition and Response Validation of a Simplified Aero-Servo-Elastic Wind Turbine Model

Currently, the foundation design of offshore wind turbines is based on a simple cantilever beam model with a mass representing the rotor and nacelle, or by making use of wind turbine simulation software such as Bladed, which are built for rotor design. The simple models are unrealistic since the dynamic interaction between the aerodynamic loads,...

Analysis of Shell Deformations of Offshore Wind Turbine Monopile Foundations

A significant reduction in the levelized cost of electricity is necessary for offshore wind farms to become a competitive energy source. Amongst other methods, overall project cost reduction can be achieved by optimized support structure design. An upcoming trend is the use of `XL monopiles', which provide a cost effective foundation solution...