Recent advances in understanding the dynamic characterization of floating offshore wind turbines

Abstract

The main purpose of the present paper is to cover the lack of a reference point in the literature providing a comprehensive review of the state of the art, recent developments, and future challenges relatives to analytical, experimental, and numerical approaches tailored for the field of dynamic characterization of floating offshore wind turbines, with a focus on aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, and anchoring systems. The Real Time Hybrid Approach makes it possible to overcome some of the problems associated with the scaling laws of the classical experimental approach, so the development of advanced actuators in association with numerical models that can guarantee accurate simulation and low computational burden are the main challenges of these approaches. In the field of numerical modeling, Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics methods show the highest levels of accuracy for studying fluid–structure interaction. Associated with this, the identification of analytical or semi-analytical formulations to solve coupled problems related to the dynamic characterization of floating offshore wind turbines could offer considerable contribution to overcome the limitations arising from the computational burdens of numerical methods. For future developments, additional topics of interest include a deeper investigation in terms of control strategies, wind farms, including wake effects, shared anchors, and mooring lines, as well as the use of new materials in mooring lines.