Motion and mooring load responses of a novel 12 MW semi-submersible floating wind turbine: An experimental study

Abstract Due to the complexity of the integrated Floating Wind Turbine (FWT) system, obtaining reliable results necessitates extensive experiments. This paper conducts a comprehensive study on the motion performance and mooring load responses of a novel 12-MW semi-submersible FWT through model tests carried out in a wave basin. A multi-blade large-scale wind-generation system, equipped with a rectifier network, was enhanced and constructed to provide a dependable wind field. And a flexible tower was designed and fabricated, achieving an accurate simulation of the tower's stiffness characteristic and its impact on the overall dynamic response. The marine environmental conditions encompass various combinations of wind, waves, and currents. Rigorous calibration and identification tests were undertaken to validate the environmental conditions and the model system. The findings reveal that, under mild wave parameters, the mooring load is primarily influenced by the resonance response with platform motions, particularly surge resonance. The load effect of wind and current induces mean surge and pitch motions, while their damping effect reduces the standard deviation of responses, notably suppressing the pitch response peak at its natural motion frequency. Wave loads predominantly dictate the vibration range of motion responses. When the current velocity reaches a sufficient magnitude, the coupling effect between current and wave in the wave–frequency region significantly amplifies the mooring response. Notably, motions and mooring loads in the 60-deg and 90-deg directions surpass those in the 0-deg direction, with the maximum responses occurring at 60 deg.