Shared Anchoring of Marine Renewable Energy Devices Utilizing Monopiles

The deployment of marine hydrokinetic (MHK) energy devices and offshore wind turbines (OWT) on a shared anchoring configuration has been a topic of interest in past years. This research aims to address several challenges related to the shared anchoring system of the co-located system. The focus has been on monopiles as the foundation support system and point wave energy converters as MHK. Wind and wave loading scenarios compatible with North Carolina offshore wind lease areas have been considered. The effect of wave and wind loading on the mooring system of the floating MHK is simulated via ANSYS AQWA. Then, numerical analyses are conducted using PLAXIS 3D to simulate a shared anchoring system by considering environmental and mooring system loading on OWT. Using the critical loading scenarios, a systematic assessment of the excess capacity of OWT monopiles as a function of the embedded length over diameter (L/D) range of 5−10 is performed. It is concluded that according to the available criteria, current monopiles have extra capacity to carry additional load from MHK devices while meeting ultimate limit state (ULS) and serviceability limit state (SLS) criteria.