Coupled Analysis and Design of Offshore Wind Turbines

Description of impact

This project uses advanced numerical methods for analysing the offshore wind turbines. The proposed work results in original research for hydrodynamics simulation of marine platforms considering the interactions between different bodies. This research helps to overcome global climate change challenges by enhancing the offshore renewable energy technology. This project results in reduced CO2 which is good for the public health and it is in line with governmental policies to reduce the CO2 production and to increase the produced electricity by renewable energy resources. Offshore renewable energy platforms are challenging and success in the development of them could result in national pride as it is extensively followed in the news worldwide and people like innovation in the energy sector. This is due to the reason that the positive effects of renewable energy in reducing the emission and controlling global warming are clear and people are interested to see achievements in this area. This is what this project is all about, to use numerical simulations to design offshore wind turbine and reduce the cost and increase the generated power quality.

Who is affected

This will benefit stakeholders and offshore renewable energy industry to develop cost-optimised floating wind parks. This project has a clear impact on the economy by getting the advantage of reducing the Levelized cost of produced electricity from offshore resources. Also, it may be a good start for the possible spin-out company in near future. Already companies like Statoil has invested in the UK to build offshore wind parks: this can be further continued for better platforms and getting more inward investment from Europe. Hence, new international projects can be started in future by arranging consortiums for further development of offshore wind turbines. This benefits research institutes, universities and industry. Moreover, the technology produced in the UK for marine platforms and advanced computational methods can be sold and transferred to developed and developing countries. The gained knowledge will be presented in conferences and published as journal articles. The researchers and scientists around the world working in the offshore renewable energy field will get benefit from the published papers accomplished in this project. And, the network made will be used to follow up the research in future, and in parallel, to enhance the execution of the current project. In addition, the knowledge developed through the project is incorporated as case studies and examples in graduate and undergraduate teaching. This has a great influence on the students and their future career. In addition, final year undergraduate and graduate research projects relevant to this work are defined to engage students and make them familiar with the state of the art engineering aspects of offshore renewable energies and in particular floating wind turbines.

Narrative

An accurate study of floating offshore structures requires interdisciplinary knowledge about wind turbine aerodynamics, floating platform hydrodynamics and mooring line dynamics, as well as the interaction between these discipline areas. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) provides a new means of analyzing a fully coupled fluid-structure interaction (FSI) system in a detailed manner. In this research, a numerical tool for the design of offshore wind turbines will be developed. The finite element modelling (FEM) tools are coupled with computational fluid dynamics to better present the aero-hydro-elastic responses of the offshore structures subjected to wave, current and wind loading. With this tool, the effects of the dynamic motions of the floating platform on the wind turbine aerodynamic performance and the impact of the wind turbine aerodynamics on the behaviour of the floating platform and on the mooring system responses are examined.

Impact status	In preparation
Impact date	01 Mar 2017 → 01 Mar 2021
Category of impact	Economic Impact, Environmental Impact
Impact level	Benefit