HYDRODYNAMIC RESPONSE OF THREE COLUMN SEMI-SUBMERSIBLE FLOATER SUPPORTING VERTICAL AXIS WIND TURBINE

摘要

Offshore wind energy extraction has gathered momentum around the world due to its advantages over onshore wind farms at various fronts. The floating support system with vertical axis wind turbine might prove to be feasible concept in medium to deep waters. In this context, this paper addresses an investigation of hydrodynamic analysis of three column semi-submersible with Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) in parked condition under regular and random waves. Free decay experiments were conducted for using scale model (1:75) in a laboratory wave basin at the Department of Ocean Engineering in Indian Institute of Technology Madras, India. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations were used to assess damping characteristics and validated with the experiments. Numerical simulations of hydrodynamic motion response of the floater were carried out using potential flow theory based commercial software (ANSYS AQWA). The damping values obtained from experiments were used in numerical simulations to obtain motion response and Response Amplitude Operator (RAO). The motion response obtained from the study was used to verify the suitability of the system for deployment in east and west coast of India.