Variational modelling of wave–structure interactions with an offshore wind-turbine mast

Abstract

We consider the development of a mathematical model of water waves interacting with the mast of an offshore wind turbine. A variational approach is used for which the starting point is an action functional describing a dual system comprising a potential-flow fluid, a solid structure modelled with nonlinear elasticity, and the coupling between them. We develop a linearized model of the fluid-structure or wave-mast coupling, which is a linearization of the variational principle for the fully coupled nonlinear model. Our numerical results for the linear case indicate that our variational approach yields a stable numerical discretization of a fully coupled model of water waves and an elastic beam. The energy exchange between the subsystems is seen to be in balance, yielding a total energy that shows only small and bounded oscillations amplitude of which tends to zero with the second-order convergence as the timestep approaches zero. Similar second-order convergence is observed for spatial mesh refinement. The linearized model so far developed can be extended to a nonlinear regime.

Experimental Modeling of Water-Wave Interactions With a Flexible Beam

“…These models generally fall into two categories. First, they range from straightforward linear shallow-water equations and linear modal analysis to intermediate-complexity linear potential-flow solvers coupled to linear elastic structural equations [4,5]. Second, there are more sophisticated approaches based on nonlinear potential flow, Navier-Stokes (NS) equations [6], and Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) [7] coupled with nonlinear hyperelastic structural equations.…”