Journal Article

Experimental Study on the Hydrodynamic Analysis of a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Under Focused Wave Conditions

Yan, Chaojun, Michailides, Constantine, Shi, Wei, Zeng, Xinmeng, Zhang, Lixian, Zhai, Hanbo, Han, Xu

2025

Overview

The strong nonlinearity of shallow-water waves significantly affects the dynamic response of floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs), introducing additional complexity in motion behavior. This study presents a series of 1:80-scale experiments conducted on a 5 MW FOWT at a 50 m water depth, under regular, irregular, and focused wave conditions. The tests were conducted under regular, irregular, and focused wave conditions. The results show that, under both regular and irregular wave conditions, the platform’s motion and mooring tension increased as the wave period became longer, indicating a greater energy transfer and stronger coupling effects at lower wave frequencies. Specifically, in irregular seas, mooring tension increased by 16% between moderate and high sea states, with pronounced surge–pitch coupling near the natural frequency. Under focused wave conditions, the platform experienced significant surge displacement due to the impact of large wave crests, followed by free-decay behavior. Meanwhile, the pitch amplitude increased by up to 27%, and mooring line tension rose by 16% as the wave steepness intensified. These findings provide valuable insights for the design and optimization of FOWTs in complex marine environments, particularly under extreme wave conditions. Additionally, they contribute to the refinement of relevant numerical simulation methods.

• Publisher: MDPI AG
• Subject: Air-turbines / Analysis / coupled analysis / Energy industry / Experiments / floating offshore wind turbine / Fluid mechanics / focused waves / Forecasts and trends / Kinematics / Model basins / model tests / Numerical analysis / Offshore / Reynolds number / Simulation / Simulation methods / Spectrum allocation / Turbines / Water / Water waves / Wave power