A floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) concept with a guy-wire-supported tower was investigated to obtain motion results in waves considering its elastic model characteristics. The FOWT concept studied aims to reduce the construction costs by using a light-weight structure tensioned with guy wires and a downwind type. Wave tank experiments of an elastically similar segmented backbone model in the 1:60 scale were carried out to clarify the dynamic elastic response features of the structure. The experimental results were compared with numerical simulations obtained from NK-UTWind and WAMIT codes. The bending moment measured at the tower and pontoons had two peak values for different wave periods carried out. The short-wave period peak was due to sagging/hogging when the wavelength matched the floater length. The second peak was due to the large tower top acceleration, which caused a large bending moment at the tower base and pontoon to support the inertia force. The wind force was not significant to modify the FOWT response. The sensibility analysis in pontoons and tower rigidities confirmed the importance of the guy wires to support the inertia due to the waves and wind incidence. The new concept of a very-light FOWT with a guy-wire-supported tower may be an option for future FOWT developments.

A floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) concept with a guy wire-supported tower was investigated to obtain results of motion in waves considering its elastic model characteristics. The FOWT concept aims to reduce construction costs by using a light-weight structure tensioned with guy wires and a downwind turbine concept type. A wave tank experiment of an elastically similar segmented backbone model in the 1/60th scale was conducted to clarify the dynamic elastic response features of the structure. The results were compared with numerical simulations obtained with software NK-UTWind (in house software developed by the University of Tokyo) and WAMIT code. It was clarified that the bending moment for tower and pontoons had two peak values when the response for each wave period was examined. The peak in the short-wave period was due to sagging when the wavelength matched the floater length. The other peak was due to the largest tower top acceleration, which caused a large bending moment at the tower base and pontoon to support the inertia force.