Predicting underwater radiated noise levels due to the first offshore wind turbine installation in the United States

Abstract

Noise generated by offshore impact pile driving radiates into the air, water and sediment. Predicting noise levels around the support structures at sea is required to estimate the effects of the noise on marine life. Based on high demands developing renewable energy source, the United States will begin the first pile driving within one to two years. It is necessary to investigate acoustic impact using our previously verified coupled Finite Element (Commercial FE code Abaqus) and Monterey Miami Parabolic Equation (2D MMPE) models (J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 131(4), p. 3392, 2012). In the present study, we developed a new coupled FE-MMPE model for the identification of zone of injury due to offshore impact pile driving. FE analysis produced acoustic pressure outputs on the surface of the pile which are used as a starting field for a long range 2D MMPE propagation model. It calculates transmission loss for N different azimuthal directions as function of distance from the location of piling with the inputs of corresponding bathymetry and sediment properties. We will present predicted zone of injury by connecting N different distances of equivalent level fishes may get permanent injury due to the first offshore wind farm installation in the U.S..

A Review of Modeling Approaches for Understanding and Monitoring the Environmental Effects of Marine Renewable Energy

“…They reflect or scatter upon contacting the seabed, water surface, or objects. These processes, represented by wave equations, can be solved directly using finite element, finite-difference, or boundary element models implemented in software such as COMSOL Multiphysics (e.g., [96,97]) or Abaqus (e.g., [98]). Like CFD models, nearfield propagation models require fine spatial resolutions and therefore are computationally intensive and best suited for ranges on the order of 10s of meters.…”

“…FEMs have also been used to estimate sound levels produced by a device to use as an input to a farfield model. This has been more commonly done for OSW, e.g., for pile-driving [98] or wind turbine operation [96]. A finite-difference model, Paracousti, was used to model generic ME sound sources over larger areas than other nearfield models by using parallel processing to reduce computation time [99].…”

“…Pine et al [82] used the RAMGeo PE model to estimate sound propagation from a stationary tidal turbine and a tidal kite for frequencies below 1.6 kHz, then used the Bellhop Gaussian beam-tracing model for higher frequencies. Farfield models have been applied more often for OSW operation [96,104] and pile-driving [78,98,[105][106][107]. Most research for environmental impact assessments has focused on the louder, impulsive noise of pile-driving rather than device operation because of the former's greater potential for causing injury.…”