Assessing the mechanical stresses of dynamic cables for floating offshore wind applications

Abstract

Offshore wind farms are progressing further offshore and into deeper waters, presenting the need for new substructures, including floating offshore wind turbines. These floating turbines will require dynamic cables to run through the water column, exposing them to the dynamic loadings of the marine environment. This paper presents a tool which models the stresses across a dynamic cable cross section's insulation layers when attached to a floating wind platform. Differing wave, wind and current flow conditions are applied and their impact on the stress distributions of the dynamic cable's insulation layers are presented. Finally from these stress histories, accumulated fatigue damage of the insulation is calculated and presented. The outcome of this can be used to estimate fatigue damage of a cable components cross section at any point along the cable length, and aid in cable installation configuration decisions.