Reduction of fatigue loads on jacket substructure through blade design optimization for multimegawatt wind turbines at 50 m water depths

This paper addresses the reduction of the fore-aft damage equivalent moment at the tower base for multi-megawatt offshore wind turbines mounted on jacket type substructures at 50 m water depths. The study investigates blade design optimization of a reference 10 MW wind turbine under standard wind conditions of onshore sites. The blade geometry and structure is optimized to yield a design that minimizes tower base fatigue loads without significant loss of power production compared to that of the reference setup. The resulting blade design is then mounted on a turbine supported by a jacket and placed under specific offshore site conditions. The new design achieves alleviate fatigue damage equivalent loads also in the jacket members, showing the possibility to prolong its design lifetime or to save material in comparison to the reference jacket. Finally, the results suggest additional benefit on the efficient design of other components such as the constituents of the nacelle.