January 2020
Our in-house software SIWEC has been ugraded to simulate floating wind turbines including wave interactions. This upgrade has already been sucessfully utilized in a current project.
A tension leg platform is currently implemented. This is modeled as a rigid body with six degrees of freedom so that there is no loss of simulation speed. Connection to the FE model of the platform takes place with help of transmission matrices using super element techniques. Bearing in mind that the rigid body movement of the platform accounts for more than 99% of the total displacement, this provides a sufficiently accurate, extremely time-efficient simulation environment for floating offshore wind turbines. Compared to equivalent simulations with FAST 8, the time required is significantly less than 1/10.
The description of the wave interactions is based on the Morison equation taking into account the McCamy and Fuchs diffraction.
