Extreme Loading on FOWT under Complex Environmental Conditions

近年来，海上风电行业经历了显著的增长，并在英国和全球范围内继续扩张。迄今为止安装的大多数海上风力涡轮机都位于相对较浅的水域，并且安装在固定的底部支撑结构上。考虑到具有高风力资源的合适浅水区的局限性，以及减少涡轮机对环境和视觉的影响，有必要通过开发浮式海上风力涡轮机（FOWT）系统将风力涡轮机扩展到更深的水域，该系统将风力涡轮机安装在浮式支撑平台上。该项目旨在通过具体表征复杂恶劣海洋环境下FOWT的极端载荷，填补新兴FOWT技术在设计、制造和测试方面的重要空白。通过先进的CFD建模和物理波浪槽测试的协调运动，这些典型的代表是风暴条件，包括强风、极端波浪、显著洋流、海平面上升以及这些因素之间复杂的相互作用。这与英国目前和计划中的开发海上风电新技术的活动直接相关。此外，该项目旨在开发一套分层数值模型，可常规应用于快速详细分析环境（风、浪、流）荷载和实际风暴条件下fowt的动态响应的特定流动问题。作为该项目的一个组成部分，普利茅斯大学的COAST实验室将设计和实施一个新的实验方案，以提高对潜在物理的理解，并验证数值模型。在项目结束时，完整记录的CFD软件和实验数据集将发布给相关的工业用户，并进入公共领域，以便它们可以用于帮助设计未来的fowt支撑结构，并确保其生存能力，在最大功率输出的安全运行范围内扩展。

The offshore wind industry has experienced significant growth in recent years, and continues to expand both in the UK and worldwide. Most of the offshore wind turbines installed to date are located in relatively shallow water and are mounted on fixed bottom support structures. Given the limitation of suitable shallow water sites available with high wind resources and also to reduce the environmental and visual impact of turbines, it is necessary to extend wind turbines to deeper water through the development of floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) systems, which mount wind turbines on floating support platforms. The project aims to fill an important gap in the design, manufacturing and testing of emerging FOWT techniques by specifically characterising extreme loading on FOWTs under complex and harsh marine environments. These are typically represented by storm conditions consisting of strong wind, extreme waves, significant current, rising sea level and complex interplay between these elements, through a coordinated campaign of both advanced CFD modelling and physical wave tank tests. This has direct relevance to the current and planned activities in the UK to develop this new technology in offshore wind. In addition, the project aims to develop a suite of hierarchical numerical models that can be applied routinely for both fast and detailed analysis of the specific flow problem of environmental (wind, wave, current) loading and dynamic responses of FOWTs under realistic storm conditions. As an integral part of the project, a new experimental programme will be devised and conducted in the COAST laboratory at the University of Plymouth, providing improved understanding of the underlying physics and for validating the numerical models. Towards the end of the project, fully documented CFD software and experimental data sets will be released to relevant industrial users and into the Public Domain, so that they may be used to aid the design of future support structures of FOWTs and to secure their survivability with an extended envelope of safe operation for maximum power output.