Site‐specific variability of load extremes of offshore wind turbines exposed to hurricane risk and breaking waves

Much of the US offshore wind energy resource is located in shallow water off the Atlantic coast, which is exposed to both hurricanes and breaking waves. Current practice in offshore wind turbine (OWT) design is to realize a target structural reliability by amplifying loads using fixed load factors that do not vary with structural or site characteristics. Given that variability in both hurricane conditions and breaking waves is structure‐ and site‐specific, the structural reliability of OWTs may vary significantly from site to site if fixed load factors are used. To understand the implications of this situation, there is a need to compare the numerical values of fixed load factors with those calculated using methods that prescribe structure‐specific and site‐specific load amplification that reflects variability in long‐term conditions. In this paper, site‐specific load amplification is considered for four Atlantic coast locations and four water depths per location and then compared with fixed load factors commonly used in the design of OWTs. The study shows that decreasing water depth and increasing hurricane exposure tend to increase the required load amplification for consistent structural reliability. Another influential factor is the mean return period at which impact loads due to breaking waves begin to dominate the loading. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Fatigue assessment of offshore wind turbines on monopile foundations using multi‐band modal expansion

Offshore wind turbines (OWTs) are subjected to both quasi‐static loads originating from variations in the thrust force and dynamic loads linked to turbulence, waves and turbine dynamics. Both types of loads contribute to fatigue life progression and thus define the turbine's age. As a structural health monitoring solution, one could thus directly measure the stress history at fatigue critical locations. However, for OWTs on monopile foundations some fatigue critical locations are located below the seabed. Installing strain sensors at these hotspots is therefore impossible for existing wind turbines. This measurement restriction is overcome by reconstructing the full‐field response of the structure based on the limited number of accelerometers and strain sensors (installed at a few easily accessible locations) and a calibrated finite element model of the system. The system model uses a multi‐band modal expansion approach constituted of the quasi‐static and dynamic contributions. These contributions are superimposed to reconstruct the stress history at all degrees of freedom of the finite element model, and the subsequent assess fatigue life consumption at all fatigue hot spots of the OWT. In this paper, the proposed virtual sensing technique is validated by predicting the stresses in the transition piece with 12 days of consecutive measurements from an operational OWT. The data set contains both variations in environmental and operating conditions as well as extreme events. Finally, a full‐field strain assessment in the tower and foundation system of the OWT is demonstrated. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Natural frequency degradation and permanent accumulated rotation for offshore wind turbine monopiles in clay

Offshore wind turbine (OWT) monopile foundations are subjected to cyclic loading from wind, waves, and operational loads from rotating blades. Lateral monopile capacity can be significantly affected by cyclic loading, causing failure at cyclic load amplitudes lower than the failure load under monotonic loading. For monopiles in clay, undrained clay behavior under short-term cyclic soil-pile loading (e.g. extreme storm conditions) typically includes plastic soil deformation resulting from reductions in soil modulus and undrained shear strength which occur as a function of pore pressure build-up. These impacts affect the assessment of the ultimate and serviceability limit states of OWTs via natural frequency degradation and accumulated permanent rotation at the mudline, respectively. This paper introduced novel combinations of existing p-y curve design methods and compared the impact of short-term cyclic loading on monopiles in soft, medium, and stiff clay. The results of this paper indicate that short-term cyclic loading from extreme storm conditions are unlikely to significantly affect natural frequency and permanent accumulated rotation for OWT monopiles in stiff clays, but monopiles in soft clay may experience significant degradation. Further consideration is required for medium clays, as load magnitude played a strong role in both natural frequency and permanent rotation estimation.     

Effect of wind and wave directionality on the structural performance of non‐operational offshore wind turbines supported by jackets during hurricanes

Risk of hurricane damage is an important factor in the development of the offshore wind energy industry in the United States. Hurricane loads on an offshore wind turbine (OWT), namely wind and wave loads, not only exert large structural demands, but also have temporally changing characteristics, especially with respect to their directions. Waves are less susceptible to rapid changes, whereas wind can change its properties over shorter time scales. Misalignment of local winds and ocean waves occurs regularly during a hurricane. The strength capacity of non‐axisymmetric structures such as jackets is sensitive to loading direction and misalignment relative to structural orientation. As an example, this work examines the effect of these issues on the extreme loads and structural response of a non‐operational OWT during hurricane conditions. The considered OWT is a 5 MW turbine, supported by a jacket structure and located off the Massachusetts coast. A set of 1000 synthetic hurricane events, selected from a catalog simulating 100,000 years of hurricane activity, is used to represent hurricane conditions, and the corresponding wind speeds, wave heights and directions are estimated using empirical, parametric models for each hurricane. The impact of wind and wave directions and structural orientation are quantified through a series of nonlinear static analyses under various assumptions for combining the directions of wind and wave and structural orientation for the considered example structure. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ultimate load design of jacket‐type offshore wind turbines under tropical cyclones

Tropical cyclones are a high risk to offshore wind turbine (OWT) support structures, so the design conditions, including this risk, are necessary for tropical cyclone frequent occurrence zones. This study developed a computer program to carry out a critical ultimate load analysis and determine the optimum design for a Jacket‐type OWT support structure. The total weight of the OWT support structure after the optimal steel design with the yaw operative condition is always considerably smaller than that without for the steel design results under the loads of the GL Tropical Cyclone Technical Note (GL TCTN). This paper studies OWTs under the tropical cyclone classes 1 to 3 and the terrain categories A, to C, where the 1‐minute wind speed at 10‐m height is gradually increased from classes 1 to 3, and the surface roughness decreases from A to C. When the yaw can operate, the total steel weight consumption due to the tropical cyclone 1C, 1B, and 2C loads is lower than that for the IEC 61400‐3 loads. In the case of 1A, the overall steel consumption is only slightly higher than that of the IEC 61400‐3. However, for other conditions, the design should include the GL TCTN loads. For the yaw inoperative condition, the GL TCTN results are always largely dominant in the steel design, so the use of only the IEC 61400‐3 condition will result in extremely high risk to OWT support structures.     

Effects of higher wave harmonics on the response of monopile type offshore wind turbines

Offshore wind turbines (OWTs) are exposed to vibration‐induced forces throughout their operational lives that may cause a catastrophic failure unless resonance is avoided by proper stiffness design. The standard design procedure for the OWTs is such that the first structural frequency should be far away from the first wave frequency to eliminate resonance. In this study, a three‐bladed 5 MW monopile type OWT was first designed according to guidelines at a site located south of Massachusetts with a water depth of 25 m. Then, the effects of the higher wave harmonics on dynamic response of OWTs were investigated. Along this line, different combinations of structural and wave frequencies were considered, and it was found out that overturning moment, which is the most important design parameter, may increase as much as 45% as a result resonance of structure with higher wave harmonics (i.e., the second and third harmonics). Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Offshore wind turbine reliability and operational simulation under uncertainties

The fast‐growing offshore wind energy sector brings opportunities to provide a sustainable energy resource but also challenges in offshore wind turbine (OWT) operation and maintenance management. Existing operational simulation models assume deterministic input reliability and failure cost data, whereas OWT reliability and failure costs vary depending on several factors, and it is often not possible to specify them with certainty. This paper focuses on modelling reliability and failure cost uncertainties and their impacts on OWT operational and economic performance. First, we present a probabilistic method for modelling reliability data uncertainty with a quantitative parameter estimation from available reliability data resources. Then, failure cost uncertainty is modelled using fuzzy logic that relates a component's failure cost to its capital cost and downtime. A time‐sequential Monte Carlo simulation is presented to simulate operational sequences of OWT components. This operation profile is later fed into a fuzzy cost assessment and coupled with a wind power curve model to evaluate OWT availability, energy production, operational expenditures and levelised cost of energy. A case study with different sets of reliability data is presented, and the results show that impacts of uncertainty on OWT performance are magnified in databases with low components' reliability. In addition, both reliability and cost uncertainties can contribute to more than 10% of the cost of energy variation. This research can provide practitioners with methods to handle data uncertainties in reliability and operational simulation of OWTs and help them to quantify the variability and dependence of wind power performance on data uncertainties.     

破碎波作用下单桩式海上风机水动力学数值分析

  目的  我国南汇、东海、大丰等海上风电场的设计波浪十分接近波浪破碎极限,需要探究浅水水域单桩式海上风机基础受破碎波载荷的动力响应。  方法  利用FAST耦合分析软件,考虑使用波浪拉伸的方式计算波浪力载荷,对单桩式风机在东海海况下的耦合动力响应特性进行分析。  结果  分析结果表明:使用波浪拉伸方式计算破碎波载荷更加接近实际海上风机所受到的载荷,且明显高于不使用拉伸方式计算的破碎波载荷。破碎波更容易激发塔筒的一阶固有频率,风浪联合作用下风机结构动力响应更加显著。  结论  研究成果为我国浅水非线性波浪区域单桩式海上风电的开发提供了一定的参考。     

Wave disturbance rejection for monopile offshore wind turbines

The dimensions of offshore wind turbine (OWT) support structures are governed by fatigue considerations. For 6‐ to 10‐MW OWTs, wave loads are often dominating in terms of fatigue utilization. The present work proposes a control scheme to reduce the wave‐induced fatigue loads in OWT support structures. The control scheme applies collective pitch control to increase both the damping and stiffness of the fore‐aft vibration modes. With conventional active tower damping, efficient wave disturbance rejection is restricted to a narrow frequency range around the first fore‐aft modal frequency. The proposed control scheme achieves efficient wave disturbance rejection across a broader frequency range. Here, tower feedback control is implemented via an auxiliary control loop. Based on a low‐fidelity model, the effect of the tower feedback loop on the stability margins of the basic controller is analysed. The results show that, within certain boundaries, the stability margins are improved by the stiffness term in the tower feedback loop. Consequently, the need to reduce the bandwidth of the basic controller to accommodate tower feedback control is relaxed. Based on time‐domain simulations carried out in an aero‐hydro‐servo‐elastic simulation tool, the lifetime effects of the proposed control scheme are analysed. Compared with conventional active tower damping, a more favourable trade‐off between adverse side effects and the support structure's fatigue damage is achieved with the proposed control scheme.     

Toward performance-based evaluation for offshore wind turbine jacket support structures

This paper introduces a framework for the assessment of damage of offshore wind turbines (OWTs) supported by jackets under extreme environmental loadings. Performance levels/damage states, ranging from operational/undamaged to near collapse/severely damaged, are defined based on static pushover analyses. An example performance assessment is presented for an OWT supported by a jacket based on environmental conditions for a site off Massachusetts along U.S. Atlantic coast. The environmental conditions are characterized based on two methods for estimating wind and wave conditions, one on extrapolation of NOAA buoy measurements and one on a stochastic hurricane catalog, and two models for extreme wave height, one on the crest height and one on the zero-up-crossing height. Using probabilistic models for demands and capacities, two curves of fragility, one estimating the initiation of yielding and the other estimating the onset of collapse, are developed to distinguish between the three damage states. The curves are applied to four combinations of two environmental hazard models and two extreme wave height models, and significant differences are found in the probability of damage among the four combinations of models. The findings have potential implications for the evaluation of the overall risk profile and associated performance for offshore wind farms.     

Low‐frequency dynamics of a floating wind turbine in wave tank–scaled experiments with SiL hybrid method

The design of floating wind turbines needs the validation of numerical models against measurements obtained from experiments that accurately represent the system dynamics. This requires solving the conflict in the scaling of the hydrodynamic and aerodynamic forces that arises in tests with wind and waves. To sort out this conflict, we propose a hybrid testing method that uses a ducted fan to replace the rotor and introduce a force representing the aerodynamic thrust. The force is obtained from a simulation of the rotor coupled in real time with the measured platform displacements at the basin. This method is applied on a test campaign of a semisubmersible wind turbine with a scale factor of 1/45. The experimental data are compared with numerical computations using linear and non‐linear hydrodynamic models. Pitch decays in constant wind show a good agreement with computations, demonstrating that the hybrid testing method correctly introduces the aerodynamic damping. Test cases with constant wind and irregular waves show better agreement with the simulations in the power spectral density's (PSD's) low‐frequency region when non‐linear hydrodynamics are computed. In cases with turbulent wind at rated wind speed, the low‐frequency platform motions are dominated by the wind, hiding the differences from hydrodynamic non‐linearities. In these conditions, the agreement between experiments using the proposed hybrid method and computations is good in all the frequency range both for the linear and the non‐linear hydrodynamic models. Conversely, for turbulent winds producing lower rotor thrust, non‐linear hydrodynamics are relevant for the simulation of the low‐frequency system dynamics.     

Modal analysis of an operational offshore wind turbine using enhanced Kalman filter-based subspace identification

Operational modal analysis (OMA) is an essential tool for understanding the structural dynamics of offshore wind turbines (OWTs). However, the classical OMA algorithms require the excitation of the structure to be stationary white noise, which is often not the case for operational OWTs due to the presence of periodic excitation caused by rotor rotation. To address this issue, several solutions have been proposed in the literature, including the Kalman filter-based stochastic subspace identification (KF-SSI) method which eliminates harmonics through estimation and orthogonal projection. In this paper, an enhanced version of the KF-SSI method is presented that involves a concatenation step, allowing multiple datasets with similar environmental conditions to be used in the identification process, resulting in higher precision. This enhanced framework is applied to an operational OWT and compared to other OMA methods, such as the modified least-squares complex exponential and PolyMAX. Using field data from a multi-megawatt operational OWT, it is shown that the enhanced framework is able to accurately distinguish the first three bending modes with more stable estimates and lower variance compared to the original KF-SSI algorithm and follows a similar trend compared to other approaches.     

Active wake control: An approach to optimize the lifetime operation of wind farms

The wind turbines within a wind farm impact each other's power production and loads through their wakes. Wake control strategies, aiming to reduce wake effects, receive increasing interest by both the research community and the industry. A number of recent simulation studies with high fidelity wake models indicate that wake mitigation control is a very promising concept for increasing the power production of a wind farm and/or reducing the fatigue loading on wind turbines' components. The purpose of this paper is to study the benefits of wake mitigation control in terms of lifetime power production and fatigue loading on several existing full‐scale commercial wind farms with different scale, layouts, and turbine sizes. For modeling the wake interactions, Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands' FarmFlow software is used: a 3D parabolized Navier‐Stokes code, including a k‐? turbulence model. In addition, an optimization approach is proposed that maximizes the lifetime power production, thereby incorporating the fatigue loads into the optimization criterion in terms of a lifetime extension factor.     

An investigation on the impacts of passive and semiactive structural control on a fixed bottom and a floating offshore wind turbine

The application of structural control to offshore wind turbines (OWTs) using tuned mass dampers (TMDs) has shown to be effective in reducing the system loads. The parameters of a magnetorheological (MR) damper modeled by the Bouc‐Wen model are modified to utilize it as a damping device of the TMD. Rather than showcasing the intricate design policy, this research focuses on the availability of the MR damper model on TMDs and its significance on structural control. The impact of passive and semiactive (S‐A) TMDs applied to both fixed bottom and floating OWTs is evaluated under the fatigue limit state (FLS) and the ultimate limit state (ULS). Different S‐A control logics based on the ground hook (GH) control policy are implemented, and the frequency response of each algorithm is investigated. It is shown that the performance of each algorithm varies according to the load conditions such as a normal operation and an extreme case. Fully coupled time domain simulations are conducted through a newly developed simulation tool, integrated into FASTv8. Compared with the passive TMD, it is shown that the S‐A TMD results in higher load reductions with smaller strokes under both the FLS and the ULS conditions. The S‐A TMD using displacement‐based GH control is capable of reducing the fore‐aft and side‐to‐side damage equivalent loads for the monopile by approximately 12% and 64%, respectively. The ultimate loadings at the tower base for the floating substructure are reduced by 9% with the S‐A TMD followed by inverse velocity‐based GH control (IVB‐GH).     

Effect of foundation type and modelling on dynamic response and fatigue of offshore wind turbines

This paper presents dynamic response and fatigue analyses of several bottom‐mounted offshore wind turbine (OWT) models, simulated in the aero‐hydro‐servo‐elastic simulation tool FAST. The distinction between the models is the foundations, which are modelled with different methods, concepts, and dimensions. The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory has developed a 5‐MW reference turbine supported on a monopile, the NREL 5MW, which was used as a reference model in this paper. The paper presents the implementation and comparison of two different foundation modeling methods, referred to as the simplified apparent fixity method and the improved apparent fixity method. Furthermore, sensitivity analyses of different monopile dimensions were performed, followed by sensitivity analyses of suction caisson foundations of different dimensions. The final part of the paper presents fatigue analyses for the foundation models considered in this study subjected to 17 load cases. Fatigue damage, fatigue life, and damage equivalent loads were calculated, as well as the relative fatigue contribution from each load case.     

基于ABAQUS的海上风力机动力分析软件平台开发

基于通用有限元程序ABAQUS和风力机开源设计软件FAST,开发海上风力机动力响应分析软件平台ABA-OWT.选用NREL 5 MW海上单桩式风力机标准模型,首先,在ABAQUS中实现风力机结构的自动化建模,并根据风力机的结构特性初步验证模型的正确性;然后,在时域内通过子程序建立风力机结构与FAST子模块(气动、水动和...     

Implementation of a non‐linear foundation model for soil‐structure interaction analysis of offshore wind turbines in FAST

Bottom‐fixed offshore wind turbines (OWTs) involve a wide range of engineering fields. Of these, modelling of foundation flexibility has been given little priority. This paper investigates the modelling of bottom‐fixed OWTs in the non‐linear aero‐hydro‐servo‐elastic simulation tool FAST v7. The OWTs considered is supported on a monopile. The objective of this paper was to implement a non‐linear foundation model in this software. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory's idealized 5MW reference turbine was used as a base for the analyses. Default modelling of foundation in FAST v7 is by means of a rigid foundation. This implies that soil stiffness and damping is disregarded. Damping may lead to lower design loads. A softer foundation, on the other hand, will increase the natural periods of the system, shifting them closer to the frequencies of the environmental loads. This may in turn lead to amplified moments at the mudline. Therefore, it is important to include soil stiffness and damping in analyses. In this paper, a non‐linear foundation model is introduced in FAST v7 by means of uncoupled parallel springs. To verify that the implementation is successful, non‐linear load‐displacement curves of the foundation spring are presented. These show the typical hysteresis loops of an inelastic material, which confirms the implementation. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Wind loads on heliostats and photovoltaic trackers of various aspect ratios

For the layout of solar trackers the wind loads on the structure have to be known. They can be calculated by using wind load coefficients given in literature. But so far these values are only valid for aspect ratios of the panel (width to height) of about 1.0. Therefore the wind load coefficients for heliostats of aspect ratios between 0.5 and 3.0 were determined to close this gap.As solar trackers are exposed to the turbulent atmospheric boundary layer the turbulence of the approaching flow has to be modeled. As a reliable method at reasonable cost wind tunnel measurements were chosen. Solar trackers of 30 m² panel size were investigated at a model scale of 1:20. Wind direction and elevation angle of the panel were varied to investigate especially the constellations at which the highest wind loads are expected (critical load cases). By spires and roughness elements a wind profile and a turbulence intensity of the modeled wind according to typical sites for solar trackers were achieved. The loads were measured by a high frequency force balance placed underneath the models. Additionally measurements of the pressure distribution on a panel with aspect ratio of 1.2 were performed to better understand the effects that lead to the peak values of the wind load coefficients.A significant impact of the aspect ratio was measured. For the critical load cases the aspect ratio dependencies of the accordant peak wind load components were determined. By these the peak wind loads on solar trackers of varies aspect ratios can be calculated.Regarding the single solar tracker components the main results are: Higher aspect ratios are advantageous for the dimensioning of the foundation, the pylon and the elevation drive but disadvantageous for the azimuth drive.     

Analysis and study of two‐dimensional parameter bifurcation of wind power farms and composite loads

This study focuses on the stability of power system based on codimension‐two bifurcation theory. In this paper, we investigate the impact of load modeling on permissible wind power generation margins in distribution networks. The study considers codimension‐two bifurcations of equilibria and limit cycles in wind power systems depending on varying two parameters simultaneously. The principle parameter is the wind power generation, and the other parameter depends on the different types of loads. The types of loads are ZIP, exponential recovery, dynamic induction loads, and composite load models. To study the effects of the induction motor loads, the proportion of the static component in the motor load is changed and assessed with respect to their mechanical loads. Wind generation margin boundaries are traced, and saddle‐node, Hopf, and limit‐induced bifurcation branches are obtained, delimiting the stable and unstable operating regions in the parameter space. The analysis presented in this paper can pave the way for determining methods for improving and monitoring these margins with consideration to the system parameters and load composition.     

Estimating the angle of attack from blade pressure measurements on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory phase VI rotor using a free wake vortex model: yawed conditions

Wind turbine design codes for calculating blade loads are usually based on a blade element momentum (BEM) approach. Since wind turbine rotors often operate in off‐design conditions, such as yawed flow, several engineering methods have been developed to take into account such conditions. An essential feature of a BEM code is the coupling of local blade element loads with an external (induced) velocity field determined with momentum theory through the angle of attack. Local blade loads follow directly from blade pressure measurements as performed in the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) phase IV campaign, but corresponding angles of attack cannot (on principle) be measured. By developing a free wake vortex method using measured local blade loads, time‐dependent angle of attack and induced velocity distributions are reconstructed. In a previous paper, a method was described for deriving such distributions in conjunction with blade pressure measurements for the NREL phase VI wind turbine in axial (non‐yawed) conditions. In this paper, the same method is applied to investigate yawed conditions on the same turbine. The study considered different operating conditions in yaw in both attached and separated flows over the blades. The derived free wake geometry solutions are used to determine induced velocity distributions at the rotor blade. These are then used to determine the local (azimuth time dependent) angle of attack, as well as the corresponding lift and drag for each blade section. The derived results are helpful to develop better engineering models for wind turbine design codes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.