PhD Defense - Vincent LEROY - ED SPI

Supervisor: Pierre FERRANT

Laboratory: LHEEA

Thursday 6 December at 2pm in Lecture Theatre S at Ecole Centrale de Nantes

Summary:

Accurate numerical simulation of the seakeeping of Floating Wind turbines (FWTs) is essential for the development of Marine Renewable Energy. State-of-the-art simulation tools assume a steady flow on the rotor. The accuracy of such models has been proven for bottom-fixed turbines, but has not been demonstrated yet for FWTs with substantial platform motions. This PhD thesis focuses on the impact of unsteady aerodynamics on the seakeeping of FWTs. This study is done by comparing quasi-steady to fully unsteady models with a coupled hydro-aerodynamic simulation tool. It shows that unsteady loads have a substantial effect on the platform motion when the rotor is highly loaded. The choice of a numerical model for example induces differences in tower base bending moments. The study also shows that state of the art quasi-steady aerodynamic models can show rather good accuracy when studying the global motion of the FWTs. Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs) could lower infrastructure costs and are hence studied today for offshore wind projects. Unsteady aerodynamics for floating VAWTs and its effects on the seakeeping modelling have been studied during the PhD thesis, leading to similar conclusions than for traditional floating Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines (HAWTs). Those turbines have been compared to HAWTs. The study concludes that, without blade pitch control strategy, VAWTs suffer from very high wind thrust at over-rated wind speeds, leading to excessive displacements and loads. More developments are hence needed to improve the performance of such floating systems.