Simulation of Offshore Wind Turbine Blade Docking Based on the Stewart Platform

Abstract

The windy environment is the main cause affecting the efficiency of offshore wind turbine installation. In order to improve the stability and efficiency of single-blade installation of offshore wind turbines under high wind speed conditions, the Stewart platform is used as an auxiliary tool to help dock the wind turbine blade in this paper. In order to verify the effectiveness of the Stewart platform for blade docking, a blade docking simulation system consisting of the Stewart platform, wind turbine blade, and wind load calculation module was built based on Simulink/Simscape Multibody. At the same time, the PID algorithm is used to control the Stewart platform so that the blade can effectively track the desired trajectory during the docking process to ensure the successful docking of the blade. Through the simulation of the docking process for blades with a length of 61.5 meters, this paper successfully demonstrates a docking system that might facilitate future docking processes. It also shows that the Stewart platform can effectively reduce the vibration and the movement range of the blade root and improve the stability and efficiency of blade docking.