A High-order Spectral Element based Time-Domain Simulation of a Model-Scale Floating Offshore Wind Turbine

This paper describes a new high-order composite numerical model designed for the efficient arbitrary-scale simulation of moored floating offshore bodies. The study focuses on static equilibrium and free decay of such structures, particularly a floating offshore wind turbine. The composite scheme models the linear or weakly-nonlinear motion in the time domain by solving the Cummins equations derived from Newton’s 2nd law of motion. The mooring forces are acquired from a discontinuous Galerkin spectral element solver. The linear pseudo-impulsive radiation problems are modeled via a three-dimensional spectral element-based solver on an unstructured hybrid-configured mesh, ultimately providing accurate frequency-dependent added mass and damping coefficients. In this work, a numerical simulation of a moored model-scale floating offshore wind turbine is performed and compared with experimental measurements. The numerical experiments agree with the measurements and demonstrate that the model can be used for full-scale computations relevant to offshore engineering applications.