Oilfield engineering consultancy Optimus has turned its hand to the renewable sector by developing a dynamic analysis model to test the durability of offshore wind farms.
Offshore wind installations are subject to multiple forces – sea currents, wave frequency and swell, gusts of wind and the rotations of the turning blades of the turbine. These combined forces result in numerous stress points on the foundation and tower structure that can go unnoticed if insufficient analysis is carried out at the design stage.
Optimus suggests that this cocktail of forces might even result in the total collapse of the structure.
Drawing on offshore oil and gas track record, Optimus’s structural team have come up with a model that addresses the structural issues associated with such stressing. Their objective is to provide assurance to wind farm operators and investors that turbines will not fall casualty to such forces.
Alan Marson, head of the advanced analysis team at Optimus and developer of the dynamic model and who has been at All-Energy this week said: “One of the challenges faced by offshore wind developers is the additional complication of dynamic foundations.
“Unlike onshore wind, where your tower is securely mounted to terra firma, offshore turbine towers and met masts are subject to dynamic motion from their foundation.
“The foundation and the tower interact and affect each other: considering them in isolation misses important results. Using our analysis model at the design stage will save wind farm developers time, money and prevent possible damage to the structures and their company’s reputation.”
The process developed by the Marson team is capable of identifying stress and fatigue points – factors that less comprehensive static analyses apparently miss – allowing engineers to rectify potential issues at the design stage.
“The important thing is this isn’t just an another way of calculating a dynamic amplification factor (DAF), which is widely used in lieu of full dynamic analysis, but detects effects that a static linear analysis simply doesn’t predict,” said Mr Marson.
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