Experimental Modelling of Wave-Structure Interaction of a Tension Leg Floating Offshore Wind Turbine at Very Large Scale

Floating offshore wind systems show significant potential to contribute to the ambitious goals of the global green energy transition. However, for a significant impact, commercialisation of such systems must be achieved, which is currently hampered by lacking technology convergence and relatively low technology readiness levels. Systematic analysis of the dynamics of floating offshore wind installations under combined and isolated wind-wave loading can support the currently ongoing research and development. This study aims at conducting such an analysis for the first time at large, 1:15.56, scale experimental setup. A tension-leg platform type floating offshore wind system is subjected to wave-only and combined wind-wave loading. Regular waves are considered, while wind loads are imposed via a novel large-scale hardware-in-the-loop system. The results indicate relatively linear trends of the system dynamics as functions of the wave height and period. The additional wind loading only shows marginal influence. While the results are, in general, in line with the pertinent literature, future work by means of an extended parameter space is required.