Fully Coupled Floating Wind Turbine Simulator Based on Nonlinear Finite Element Method: Part I — Methodology

In the present paper, a new fully coupled simulator based on DeepLines™ software is described in order to address floating wind turbines dynamic simulation. It allows its user to take into account either separately or together the hydrodynamic and aerodynamic effects on one or several floating wind turbines. This simulator includes a non linear beam finite elements formulation to model the structural components — blades, tower, drivetrain, mooring lines and umbilicals — for both HAWT and VAWT layouts and advanced hydrodynamic capabilities to define all kinds of floating units and complex environmental loadings. The floating supports are defined with complete hydrodynamic databases computed with a seakeeping program. The aerodynamic loads acting on the turbine rotor are dynamically computed by an external aerodynamic library, which first release includes BEM (blade element moment for HAWTs) and SSM (single streamtube method for VAWTs) methods. The integration in time is performed with an implicit Newmark integration scheme.