A Comparative Study on Hydrodynamic Responses of Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Platforms in Regular Waves

Abstract

Floating Offshore Wind Turbine (FOWT) platforms have gained importance due to their adaptability to complex marine conditions in deep-sea environments. The objective of this paper is to perform hydrodynamic analysis of semisubmersible FOWT platforms in regular waves. A commercial hydrodynamic software named Hydrostar (introduced by Bureau Veritas) is adopted for numerical simulations of the present problem. The numerical simulations are based on linear three-dimensional (3-D) potential flow theory and the added mass and damping coefficients, first-order wave excitation forces and motion responses of FOWT platforms in six degrees of freedom are calculated. The frequency domain results are presented against wave circular frequency for different wave heading angles. The semisubmersible FOWT platform model used in this study features a central column and three offset columns having circular cross-sections with base at the bottom. Three different base geometries, namely circular, square, and hexagonal shape, are considered to understand their influence on the platform's hydrodynamic response. The numerical results are validated by comparing them with the published research. While the wave excitation forces and motion responses are influenced by wave heading angles, an in-depth comparative analysis of hydrodynamic results in the frequency domain for these three FOWT platform models indicates that variations in base geometry have negligible effects on the hydrodynamic behavior of these structures. The numerical results obtained from this research work may be helpful for hydrodynamic design of FOWT platforms.