The focus of the Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration, Continuation, with Correlation and unCertainity (OC6) project, which operates under the International Energy Agency Wind Task 30, is to refine the accuracy of engineering tools used to design offshore wind turbines. In support of this work, a new validation campaign is being developed that seeks to better understand the nonlinear wave loading that excites floating wind systems at their low-frequency, rigid-body modes in surge and pitch. The validation data will be employed in a three-way validation between simplified engineering tools and higher-fidelity tools, such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Irregular wave spectrums, which are traditionally used to examine the nonlinear wave interaction with offshore structures, are too computationally expensive to be simulated in CFD tools, and so we will employ bichromatic wave cases instead. This paper reviews the process used to choose the bichromatic wave pairs to be applied in the campaign to validate the second-order difference-frequency quadratic and potential loads at the surge and pitch natural frequencies of a floating semisubmersible.

For the simulation of the coupled dynamic response of floating offshore wind turbines, it is crucial to calibrate the hydrodynamic damping with experimental data. The aim of this work is to find a set of hydrodynamic drag coefficients for the semisubmersible platform of the Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration, Continuation, with Correlation and unCertainity (OC6) project which provides suitable results for an irregular sea state. Due to the complex interaction of several degrees of freedom (DOF), it is common to calibrate drag coefficients with the time series of decay tests. However, applying these drag coefficients for the simulation of an irregular sea state results in misprediction of the motions. By using numerical optimization, it is possible to calibrate multiple drag coefficients simultaneously and effectively, while also considering several DOF. This work considers time series of structural displacements from wave tank tests of the OC6 project and from simulations of the same load cases in OpenFAST. Results are transferred into the frequency domain and the deviation between power spectral densities of surge, pitch and heave from experiment and numerical simulation is used as an objective function to obtain the best fitting drag coefficients. This novel numerical optimization approach enables finding one set of drag coefficients for different load cases, which is a major improvement compared to decay-test-tuned drag coefficients.

No abstract

Extended keynote paper of Eurosteel 2021 This article provides an overview of the various support structures for offshore wind turbines and addresses the challenges that arise for the different design variants. First of all, the existing types of support structures are explained and their benefits and shortcomings discussed. Following that, the focus is on material fatigue and its analysis, which is of great importance due to the cyclic loading on the structures. A central topic of this article is the experimental evaluation of fatigue strength using large‐scale test setups and state‐of‐the‐art measurement methods. Critical and complex design details such as welds for extremely thick plates, tubular joints, grouted connections, large HV bolts and ring flanges are investigated to improve methods of analysis. Further, the new series of German standards (DIN 18088) for support structures for wind energy turbines and platforms is addressed. Finally, these topics are summarized and the importance of offshore wind energy for the transition to cleaner energy is emphasized.

Suction buckets are large shell structures that have become a prominent alternative to pile foundations for bottom-fixed and floating offshore wind turbines. They are embedded by applying negative pressure, which leads to a high risk of structural buckling during the installation. The prediction of the buckling strength of such large shells is subject to uncertainty, since it depends significantly on the initial geometric imperfections resulting from the fabrication process. The aim of this work is to understand and reduce uncertainties in the determination of the buckling pressure. Previous work on suction buckets revealed that the choice of a representative imperfection form and amplitude is very challenging and has not yet been solved in a generalized manner. In this work, a stochastic modeling approach is introduced, which considers more realistic imperfection patterns. This approach is compared to widely established imperfection forms such as buckling mode affine imperfections and analytically described weld depressions. The generated imperfection patterns are applied to geometrically and materially nonlinear finite element models and the buckling pressures are calculated. By quantifying the impact of different imperfection forms and amplitudes, uncertainties can be reduced, and design optimization and cost minimization are enabled.