Integrated Mechanical and Hydrodynamic Modeling of Offshore Floating Wind Turbines

Abstract

This thesis presents the development of a nonlinear mechanical and hydrodynamical model for floating offshore wind turbines. The model employs results from robotics to model the equations of motion. A simple rigid-body turbine model has been implemented. Hydrodynamic forces are modeled in part with the generalized Morison equation, in part with direct integration of the Froude-Krylov pressures. Buoyancy forces are modeled via a non-linear buoyancy scheme that considers variations in water-plane area. Mooring forces are modeled with a real-time numeric solution of the quasi-static catenary equations. Simulation results are presented. Comparison with existing data shows excellent agreement. The model successfully provides a nonlinear time-domain simulation capability for offshore floating wind turbines.