Structural Design of the Substructure of a 10 MW Floating Offshore Wind Turbine System Using Dominant Load Parameters

Fully coupled integrated load analyses (ILAs) to evaluate not only the load response but also the structural integrity are required to design a floating offshore wind turbine, since there has been no firmly established approach for obtaining the structural responses of a FOWT substructure in the time domain. This study aimed to explore if a direct strength analysis (DSA) technique that has been widely used for ships and offshore structures can adequately evaluate the FOWT substructure. In this study, acceleration and nacelle thrust were used for the dominant load parameters for DSA. The turbine thrust corresponding to the 50-year return period was taken from the literature. The acceleration response amplitude operator (RAO) was obtained through frequency response hydrodynamic analysis. The short-term sea states defined by the wave scatter diagram (WSD) of the expected installation area was represented by the JONSWAP wave spectrum. To account for the multi-directionality of the short-crested waves, the 0th order moments of the wave spectrum were corrected. The probabilities of each short-term sea state and each wave incidence angle were applied to derive the long-term acceleration for each return period. DSA cases were generated by combining the long-term acceleration and nacelle thrust to maximize the forces in the surge, sway, and heave directions. Linear spring elements were placed under the three outer columns of the substructure to provide soft constraints for hive, roll, and pitch motions. Nonlinear spring elements with initial tension were placed on the three fairlead chain stoppers (FCSs) to simulate the station-keeping ability of the mooring lines; they provided initial tension in the slacked position and an increased tension in the taut position. The structural strength evaluation of the coarse mesh finite element model with an element size same as the stiffener spacing showed that high stresses exceeding the permissible stresses occurred in the unstable members of the substructure. The high stress areas were re-evaluated using a fine mesh finite element model with an element size of 50 mm × 50 mm. The scope of structural reinforcement was identified from the fine mesh analyses. It was found that the DSA can be properly utilized for the substructure strength assessment of a FOWT.