Review on Dynamics of Offshore Floating Wind Turbine Platforms

Abstract

This paper presents a literature review of the dynamics of offshore floating wind turbine platforms. When moving further offshore, there is an increase in the capacity of wind power. Generating power from renewable resources is enhanced through the extraction of wind energy from an offshore deep-water wind resource. Mounting the turbine on a platform that is not stable brings another difficulty to wind turbine modeling. There is a need to introduce platforms that are more effective to capture this energy, because of the complex dynamics and control of these platforms. This paper highlights the historical developments and progresses in the design of different types of offshore floating wind turbine platforms needed for harvesting the energy from offshore winds. The relative advantages and disadvantages of the platform types with the design challenges are discussed. The major types of floating platforms included in this study are tension leg platform (TLP) type, spar type, and semisubmersible type. This study reviews the previous work on the dynamics of the floating platforms for a single turbine and multiple turbines under various operating environmental conditions. The numerical methods to analyze the aerodynamics of the wind turbine and hydrodynamics of floating platforms are discussed in this paper. This paper also investigates the performance of analytical wake loss models of Jensen, Larsen, and Frandsen that can provide guidelines for using these wake models in future applications. There are still a lot of challenges that need to be addressed to study the accurate behavior of floating platforms operating under combined wind–wave environmental conditions. With the current technological advancements, the offshore floating multi-turbine platform can be a potential solution to harness the abundant offshore wind resource. Based on this literature review, recommendations for future work are suggested.