Hydrodynamic Analysis for a Jacket-Type Support Structure of the Offshore wind Turbine

¹ Mechanical and System Engineering Program, Institute of Nuclear Energy Research, Atomic Energy Council, Longtan, Taoyuan, Taiwan, (R.O.C.)
² Graduate Institute of Hydrological and Oceanic Sciences, National Central University, Taoyuan, Taiwan, (R.O.C.)

Abstract

In the present study, the hydrodynamic load due to extreme external condition, such as typhoon, on the offshore wind turbine (OWT) has been investigated by numerical simulations. The hydrodynamic loads including the sea current, regular and irregular wave on the structure are taken into account. The sea current is considered with the constant flow speed, whereas the wave is considered as regular and irregular based on the observed data at considered locations. Using Splash3D, a three-dimensional numerical model is developed for performing the force evaluation of the OWT. Multi-phase flow is evaluated by the volume of fraction (VOF) model, and the turbulent flow is described by the large-eddy-simulation (LES) model. It can be deduced that using the regular wave as the hydrodynamic load for the evaluation of the OWT system will vanish some instantaneous extreme wave. In the case of using the irregular wave, the instantaneous extreme wave is also taken into account. With such more practical hydrodynamic load, the average force for the case of irregular wave is 64% larger than that of the regular wave.