An Approach for the Optimum Design of TLP Type Offshore Wind Turbines Available to Purchase

In this paper, we will show a new approach to design a Tension Leg Platform (TLP) type offshore wind turbine. Generally, TLPs are used in deepwater oil and gas development fields due to their favorable motion characteristics. In this field, they have high set up costs. An upper structure of 5MW wind turbine, however, is only 450tons at its total weight, which is much lighter than that of oil and gas platforms. Therefore the displacement and water plane area of the platform might be smaller. As a result, wave forces could decrease and it could lead initial tensions to be lower. This idea that leads to low set up costs will be discussed and also principal particulars of two types of TLP prototypes will be proposed in the present work. A tank test using 1/100 scale models was conducted under combined wind and wave conditions in this work. We measured not only motion characteristics, tensions on tendons, but also rotation speed of the turbine blades. Important phenomena in terms of a gyro effect, snapping and so on could be observed, and will be introduced in this paper.