Research and practice of offshore wind turbine model test platform and technology

Abstract

The abundance of offshore wind energy resources has promoted the development of offshore wind turbine. With the increase of wind turbine power, the fixed foundation for shallow sea area no longer meets the design requirements, and the floating foundation for deep sea area has been developed rapidly. In this paper, the development process, types and particularity are introduced, and it demonstrates that the model experiment is indispensable in the development of floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT). Firstly, key technologies of basin model test are concluded, such as similarity criteria, scale ratio determination technology, model blade design technology, mooring system processing technology and environmental conditions simulation technology. Then object of 6 MW SPAR-type FOWT proposed by Shanghai JiaoTong University is researched, and production process of model is summarized, including model blade, model nacelle and model tower. Finally, the construction of the deep water test tank of marine engineering of Shanghai JiaoTong University is introduced, and the test results of the new multi-column TLP FOWT model test in the test tank are shown. The test results have great agreement with software simulation results. The results show that the deep water test tank of marine engineering of Shanghai JiaoTong University can be well developed as basin model test of FOWT. This paper supplies some guidance for the following model test and provides a theoretical basis for the development of the FOWT.