Response Analysis of the Combined Wind/Wave Εnergy Concept SFC in Harsh Environmental Conditions

Abstract

In this paper a combined concept involving a semi-submersible type FWT and three rotating flap WECs is considered and its structural response is examined for harsh environmental conditions. The examined combined concept is named as the Semi-submersible Flap Combination (SFC). Fully coupled analysis in time domain is performed in order to examine and investigate extreme responses of the SFC system such as the motions of the support-platform in six degrees of freedom, tension of the mooring lines, rotation of the WECs, internal loads of the arms that connect the rotating flaps of each WEC with the pontoon of the semisubmersible platform and internal loads in the tower of the wind turbine. Analysis is performed for different wave and wind seed numbers as well as for aligned and misaligned wind and wave directions with environmental conditions on the 50-year contour surfaces with maximum wind speed or maximum wave height.