Advanced Review

Offshore wind turbine

environment, loads, simulation,
and design
Fabian Vorpahl,1 ∗ Holger Schwarze,1 Tim Fischer,2 Marc Seidel3
and Jason Jonkman4

In the design, certification, and optimization of offshore wind turbines, extensive

loads simulation is inevitable to develop reliable and cost-effective turbines. De-
scription of the marine environment is based on a variety of techniques taking the
stochastic nature of both, the wind and the water waves into account. The wind
turbine is a highly dynamic system including effects of heavy rotating machinery
and other significant nonlinearities leading to static, cyclic, transient, and stochas-
tic loads. Due to the nature of the external loading, the system properties and the
turbine design lifetime, offshore wind turbines are prone to fatigue-driven fail-
ure. For loads assessment, aero-hydro-servo-elastic tools are used including the
coupled effects of the environment and the turbine to simulate the overall life-
time of the turbine in the harsh marine environment. These tools are constantly
further developed and adapted to the needs of a fast-growing industry and newly
arising turbine concepts. Engineering approaches to allow for certification and re-
liable design are summarized in extensive guidelines and standards supporting
engineers in daily design work.  C 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

How to cite this article:

WIREs Energy Environ 2012. doi: 10.1002/wene.52

INTRODUCTION Terms describing the components of OWTs are

O ffshore wind turbines (OWT) are complex
machines that are strongly influenced by the
surrounding environment. They are designed and cer-
tified based on load assumptions gained from exten-
sive simulations. Loads simulation is a complex task;
however, the effort is necessary as high availability
and cost-effectiveness are only achievable when (1) all
significant loads are predicted in advance to guarantee
a reliable design, and (2) the loads are not massively
overestimated as this leads to high reserves, that is, a
design that is not cost effective.
∗ Correspondence to: fabian.vorpahl@iwes.fraunhofer.de
1 Fraunhofer
Institute for Wind Energy and Energy Systems Tech-
nology IWES, Bremerhaven, Germany
2 Rambøll Offshore Wind, Hamburg, Germany
3 REpower Systems SE, Osnabrück, Germany
4 National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO,
USA
DOI: 10.1002/wene.52
used based on international electrotechnical commis-
sion (IEC) definitions as shown in Figure 1. OWT
refers to the system as a whole, including the rotor-
nacelle assembly (RNA) and the support structure.
Extensive experience exists in the onshore wind
industry. However, important differences concerning
global dynamics and loads occur in the variety of sup-
port structures available for offshore systems and the
addition of hydrodynamic loads on these structures.
The offshore oil and gas industry is a source of knowl-
edge, but differences (comparing offshore wind struc-
tures to oil and gas structures) such as the larger wind
loading contribution, the influence of dynamics and
nonlinearities, shallow-water sites potentially leading
to breaking waves, and the fact that wind turbines are
‘low risk structures’ (unmanned, low pollution haz-
ards) compared to oil and gas structures need to be
taken into account for OWTs.a
Offshore wind energy (and wind energy in gen-
eral) is a young industry and its serial production
is immature compared to other industries producing

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Advanced Review
F I G U R E 1 Parts of an offshore wind turbine according to IEC. (Figure 1 of IEC 61400-3 (edition 2009), licenced by VDE Verband der
Elektrotechnik Elektronik Informationstechnik e.V.—Department DKE. Please take care to always use the latest edition you can get at
www.vde-verlag.de and www.iec.ch.)
large quantities of one type of machine, for exam-
ple, the automotive industry. Larger series production
and local and system-wide optimizations will improve
the design, manufacturing, and economics of OWTs.
However, as long as site-specific design is required,
the economies of scale cannot be applied, at least not
to the structure as a whole. Production costs com-
bined with the financial and technical risks in the off-
shore wind sector (compared to onshore wind) must
be considered. Even for series with only a few struc-
tures, this justifies higher loads simulation efforts that
result in lower safety factors and, therefore, more op-
timized products.
This article summarizes the state-of-the-art in
OWT loads simulation, describing the environment,
the OWT system, the tools that are used, and the stan-
dards that are applied. The focus is on the aero-hydro-
servo-elastic, coupled, or fully coupled approach for
OWT simulation that includes the entire system in
one numerical model, and the respective aeroelastic
tools. The importance of this approach—that is more
elegant and more accurate compared to the formerly
used sequential approaches that simulate the RNA
and the support structure separately—has continu-
ously grown in recent years and this development is
expected to continue.
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DESCRIPTION OF THE MARINE
ENVIRONMENT
In this section, the marine environment is described
with respect to the engineering requirements for OWT
simulation. For information on corrosion,1, 2 light-
ning protection,3 ship collision risk,4, 5 seismic loads,3
ice loads on the blades and support structure,6, 7,b ma-
rine growth, soil properties and scour,8, 9 currents,10
and water level variations, it is referred to the re-
spective literature. A comprehensive summary of the
marine environment is given in Refs 11 and 12.
The main mechanical loads on OWTs result
from wind loads on the rotor and wave loads on the
support structure; therefore, those load sources are
described in more detail in sections Wind and Waves.
Wind
Wind speed and direction are fluctuating at different
scales in time and space. The range that is of interest
for loads simulation falls between several days and a
few seconds and is shown in Figure 2.
The spectral gapc between the high-frequency
oscillations on the right-hand side of the spectrum and
the low-frequency oscillations at the left-hand side,
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 WIREs Energy and Environment OWT loads and design

5.0

4.5 Synoptic peak

4.0

3.5
Spectrum, f.S(f) 3.0
Turbulent peak

2.5
Diurnal peak
2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
10 days 4 days 24 h 10 h 2 h 1 h 30 min 10 min 3 min 1 min 30 s 10 s 5 s
Frequency, log (f)

F I G U R E 2 Wind speed fluctuation spectrum from days to seconds modified from Ref 13 the original published in Ref 14. (Modified with
permission from Ref 14. Copyright 1957, American Meteorology Society.)

showing the low energy content in this range of fre-

quencies, is directly visible. The synoptic peak results
from changes due to crossing weather phenomena.
The diurnal peak represents night and day changes
and the turbulent peak represents high-frequency fluc-
tuations. To describe the random nature of the wind,
( )

time series with a given average wind speed Vw and

a length of 10 min ≤ Twind ≤ 1 hour are usually used,
as this length range lies in the spectral gap. Due to
P

that, the error, when assuming a stationary stochastic

process is minimized and the wind may be described
separately for the lower-frequency range (Long-
Term Wind Statistics) and for the higher-frequency
range (Short-Term and Small-Scale Wind Speed
Fluctuations). W ( )

F I G U R E 3 Bar chart of average wind speeds and Weibull fit.

Long-Term Wind Statistics
In the lower-frequency range it was found, based on
measurements, that a Weibull function fits the dis-
tribution of the average wind speeds over the wind
speeds relatively well at most sites. Figure 3 shows a
bar chart giving the average wind speed probabilities
and the respective Weibull fit. Site-specific measure-
ment data or the Weibull distribution are, therefore,
used to describe the distribution of the average wind
speeds for loads simulation.
With each of the bars shown in Figure 3, a direc-
tional distribution is associated that can be visualized
in a wind rose. In Figure 4, each of the wind roses
that are shown represents a wind speed range (bin)
of b = 2 m/s. The values in the figure next to the
respective wind rose give the median of the bin. This
is a commonly used bin size, a useful compromise be-
tween accuracy and effort. However, the bin size may
be halved in special cases.
Short-Term and Small-Scale Wind Speed
Fluctuations
Looking into smaller sizes in space, the wind speeds
at heights that encompass the turbine rotor are rel-
evant for loads simulation. These wind speeds in-
crease with height due to the atmospheric boundary
layer (wind shear). The shape of the wind shear pro-
file is highly dependent on the surface, characterized
by its roughness, and the temperature distribution.
For loads simulation, the profiles are approximated
with logarithmic or power law functions as shown in
Figure 5. The figure gives four wind shear profiles:

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F I G U R E 4 Wind roses for wind speed ranges (bins) of a size of b = 2 m/s for average wind speeds of 0 m/s ≤ Vw ≤ 11 m/s at a Dutch
North Sea site (Reproduced with permission from Ref 16. Copyright 2010, SWE.)

100 tions (as already shown in Figure 2). In wind turbine

90 log onshore (WT) loads simulation, different spectra are com-
80 power law onshore monly used with the basic input parameters Vw as
70 log offshore described above, and a standard deviation σ or tur-
60
power law offshore
bulence intensity Ti = σ/Vw . Generally, σ increases,
Height (m)

50 and Ti decreases with increasing Vw . When detailed

40
30
20
10
0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
Standardized velocity (-)
F I G U R E 5 Logarithmic and power law wind shear profiles for an
onshore site and for an offshore site.
Two profiles with a typical surface roughness for an
onshore site with flat terrain (short dashes: power
law; long dashes: logarithmic) and two profiles with
a typical surface roughness for an offshore site
(dots: power law; solid line: logarithmic). The re-
spective equations are given, for example, in Ref 10,
Section 3.65).
Based on measurements with high resolution in
time and space, the random small-scale variations of
wind speed and direction (or wind velocity as a three
dimensional vector) were analyzed extensively in the
past. Such time series may basically be described in
the frequency range based on a spectrum giving the
frequency-dependent energy content of the fluctua-
measurements are not available, the spectra are used
to generate generic time series.13
Above, single-point time history data or spec-
tra are described; however, variation of this speed
across the rotor disk is important for turbine load-
1
ing. So, a grid of points over the rotor disc is typ-
ically applied. Because the described air flow is a
fluid, the wind speed at a given time at each point
is correlated to the wind speeds at the other points in
the described area. The correlation decreases with in-
creasing distance between the considered points and
with increasing frequency. The mathematical formu-
lations of the coherence functions (i.e., the correlation
between two points on such a grid) are commonly
given in the appendices of the standards, such as
for the three-dimensional and fully correlated Mann
model17 that is given in Annex B of Ref 3. The
current approaches lead to acceptable results; how-
ever, in complex terrain, such as hilly forests and in
wakes of other turbines, the methods have limitations
(for details on wind field simulation and current de-
velopments concerning turbine wake simulation, cf.
Aero-Hydro-Servo-Elastic Tools for Offshore Wind
Turbine Simulation).

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 WIREs Energy and Environment
Extreme wind speeds and gusts lead to extreme
loads on wind turbines. These events are treated sep-
arately because of the vital importance in WT design.
This is particularly true for extreme load calculation
of gusts that typically have durations of a few sec-
onds to minutes and are not covered very well in the
aforementioned approach. Those incidents occur ran-
domly and can be described with so called n year wind
speeds, which give the maximum average wind speed
over a given time interval that is statistically exceeded
once in n years.
As measured data over the necessarily long time
periods are rarely available, extrapolations can be
performed using extreme value distributions. In the
respective guidelines, sites for wind turbines are classi-
fied and the values, for example, 50-year wind speeds,
are given for each class (see, e.g., Ref 8.)
Gust wind speeds over time are simplified and
described with different approaches. A ‘one-minus-
cosine’, or a ‘Mexican-Hat’ gust shape,8, 11 are com-
mon. Other shapes and combinations with wind
direction changes may be found in the respective
standards.10
Ocean Waves
The ocean waves considered herein are wind-induced
(water is deflected due to wind by friction) gravity
(restoring force) waves. Constant wind over suffi-
cient time and length (fetch length) theoretically leads
to unidirectional waves (long-crested waves), with
heights correlated to the respective wind speed (fully
developed sea states). Wind direction changes, inter-
secting wave systems, different water depths, different
natures of the sea bed, the influence of the coastlines,
and interactions between single wavelets lead to a
short-crested irregular sea surface in reality.
Herein, the field of water–wave description and
resulting loads is strongly compressed while focused
on the needs of OWT loads simulation (for details and
a wider focus (see, e.g., Refs 18 and 19). Effects from
breaking waves and higher order effects such as ring-
ing and springing are not described here. For details
on directional wave spreading leading to short-crested
waves, it is referred to Annex B5 of.10 Structures are
assumed to be hydrodynamically transparent (slen-
der structures, small structural diameters relative to
the wave length); feedback from (moving) structures
to the wave field (reflection, refraction, diffraction) is
not taken into account. On basis of that, the problem
of wave loads is divided into the description of the
water particle movement (see sections Wave Theories
and Short-Term and Long-Term Stochastic Sea-State
Description) and the calculation of the load on the
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OWT loads and design
structure based on these kinematics. The kinematics
calculation is limited to regular, that is, deterministic
(linear and nonlinear) and irregular, that is, stochas-
tic (linear) waves or sea states. Nonlinear irregular
approaches are discussed in Ref 20.
Wave Theories
Water waves can simply, and with relative accuracy
be approximated with a linear water surface elevation
in the case of small-amplitude waves in deep water.
With increasing wave height and/or decreasing water
depth, the wave shape becomes steeper—the wave
shape becomes nonlinear—until the wave brakes.
The linear wave theory, also called Airy wave
theory or small-amplitude wave theory, is an easily
applicable analytical theory based on a further sim-
plified potential flow theory to describe wave particle
kinematics. It leads to a sinusoidal surface elevation.
The maximum velocities and accelerations occur at
the water surface, their magnitudes are decreasing
with depth following hyperbolic functions. The ba-
sic formulation of Airy wave theory does not pro-
vide any kinematics above the still water line, this is
accounted for with so called stretching methods ex-
trapolating the kinematics to the actual elevation (see
Ref 21 for the so called ‘Wheeler Stretching’). For
deep-water waves, the water particles move in closed
circles. Due to the boundary condition at the bottom
that sets the vertical motion to zero, the circles be-
come more and more flat ellipsoids approaching the
bottom in shallow water. With the linearization used,
a high water depth-to-wavelength ratio is postulated.
Therefore, strictly spoken, linear wave theory is only
valid for deep-water waves.
Airy wave theory is widely used. This is mainly
due to its simplicity, and the linear formulation that
allows for superposition of Airy waves (or wavelets)
to irregular sea states.
Stream function wave theories were developed
for a numerical description of highly nonlinear waves.
These theories describe the water surface elevation us-
ing a linear term and the superimposed harmonics of
the fundamental wave frequency. The resulting sur-
face profile is symmetric vertically through the crest,
with a higher and steeper crest and a flatter trough
than a linear wave. Using high-order stream function
wave theories, water waves near the breaking limit
can be described.
The water particles of ocean waves have an av-
erage velocity—associated with a mass transport—in
the direction of wave propagation, called the Stokes
drift. Consequently, the orbital particle paths as de-
scribed are open. Wave theories such as the linear
theory, or the stream function wave theory in the
5
Advanced Review wires.wiley.com/wene

basic formulation, do not take this into account, but 4

by superimposing a slow constant current, this error
3.5
may be corrected.
Small-amplitude waves in deep waters may be 3
described with linear wave theory, but with increasing 2.5

S (m²s)
ratio of wave height to water depth, the more com-
plicated nonlinear theories are applied. Big shallow- 2
water waves can only be reasonably described us- 1.5
ing a higher-order stream function wave theory. See
Ref 22 for other wave theories such as Stoke’s expan- 1
sions or the Boussinesq approach. The applicability 0.5
of the different wave theories is given in the respec-
0
tive standards and guidelines (see, e.g., Ref 8, Figure
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8
4.G.1, p. 4–63). f (Hz)

Short-Term and Long-Term Stochastic F I G U R E 6 JONSWAP spectra for Hs = 4 m and Tz = 6 s with

Sea-State Description γ = 1 (blue) and γ = 3.3 (red).
Measuring water surface elevation at a fixed position
leads to a random time series and cannot realistically
be described with a single periodic wave. Still the
(unmodified). With such spectral descriptions, generic
frequency-dependent energy content of such a time
time series can be generated for simulation purposes.
series can be described in the frequency domain with
To simulate an OWT during its entire design
a wave spectrum (short-term statistics). This leads to
lifetime, long-term wave statistics are used (compara-
a realistic energy distribution over the range of wave
ble to the wind speed distribution shown in Figure 3).
frequencies.
A common approach to describe these statistics is by
Two common wave spectra, the Pierson–
the use of wave scatter diagrams giving the probabil-
Moskowitz (PM) and the JONSWAP spectrum are
ity of pairs of Hs and Tp in a two dimensional matrix
characterized herein (see Ref 18 for others). For both
or by including a wind speed bin as a third dimension.
spectra, the significant wave height Hs and a period,
Figure 7 shows an excerpt of a three-dimensional scat-
for example, the mean zero-crossing period Tz are
ter diagram.
used as input parameters. Hs is defined as the mean
The long-term wave direction distribution can
height of the highest one third of waves in a sea state
be visualized in wave roses, that are similar to the
(traditionally estimated as mean wave height in vi-
wind roses described in Long-Term Wind Statistics.
sual observations). It is four times the standard devia-
The long-term statistical oceanographic properties de-
tion of the wave heights in a narrow-banded sea state
scribed herein are well documented based on long-
(Hs = 4σ ). Tz is the mean period between two zero-
term measurements for many sea areas.d
crossings with positive slope in an irregular sea state
Extreme waves may lead to design-driving ex-
and can be determined directly from the time series.
treme loads and are therefore treated separately (com-
For a given spectrum and given Tz , the peak period
parable to wind gusts, cf. Short-Term and Small-Scale
Tp of the spectrum, that is the period associated with
Wind Speed Fluctuations). Usually, a regular 50-year
the highest energy in the spectrum (the spectral peak)
wave is derived based on the respective 3-hour ex-
can be derived. Tp and Tz are interchangeable as input
treme sea state.
parameters.
The PM spectrum23 was developed based on
measurements in the Atlantic ocean in stable weather
conditions. It is basically a one parameter spectrum SYSTEM PROPERTIES OF OFFSHORE
with Vw as the input parameter, but it can be modified WIND TURBINES AND RESULTING
to allow for use of Hs and Tz .
The JONSWAP spectrum was developed for
LOADS
regions where usual sea states are not fully devel- This section provides properties that are relevant in
oped; it is a PM spectrum modified mainly with a the loads simulation context for common three-blade,
peak-shape parameter γ to get a more distinct peak. pitch-controlled, upwind turbines with a horizontal
Figure 6 shows JONSWAP spectra, including a JON- axis. For other concepts and more detailed descrip-
SWAP spectrum with γ = 1, which is a PM spectrum tions, refer to standard text books such as Ref 13.

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 WIREs Energy and Environment OWT loads and design

Tp [s]
Vw = 9–11 m/s
< 0,5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 >11,5
9.5 0.00000
9 0.00000
8.5 0.00000
8 0.00000
7.5 0.00000
7 0.00000
6.5 0.00000
6 0.00000
5.5 0.00000
5 0.00000
Hs [m]
4.5 0.00002 0.00002
4 0.00002 0.00003 0.00002 0.00002 0.00002 0.00009
3.5 0.00006 0.00020 0.00005 0.00002 0.00033
3 0.00008 0.00044 0.00039 0.00009 0.00100
2.5 0.00003 0.00208 0.00205 0.00062 0.00003 0.00482
2 0.00002 0.00306 0.01031 0.00358 0.00047 0.00002 0.01745
1.5 0.00092 0.02380 0.01464 0.00117 0.00011 0.00002 0.00002 0.04066
1 0.00078 0.02377 0.02700 0.00366 0.00033 0.00005 0.00002 0.00002 0.05561
0.5 0.00002 0.00871 0.01423 0.00244 0.00039 0.00012 0.00002 0.00003 0.02596
<0,25 0.00026 0.00026 0.00008 0.00061
0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00002 0.00975 0.03920 0.05642 0.03116 0.00776 0.00188 0.00028 0.00005 0.00003 0.14654

F I G U R E 7 Part of a three-dimensional wave scatter diagram for a Dutch North Sea Site and a range of wind speeds of
9 m/s ≤ Vw ≤ 11 m/s (Reproduced with permission from Ref 16, p. 78. Copyright 2010, SWE.).

Support Structures and Respective Load Effects on the Rotor

Properties
Monopiles and gravity-based structures are widely
used. A small number of branched steel structures
such as Jackets,e Tripods, or Tripiles were built in
recent years and two (large scale) floating wind tur-
bines have been installed as prototypes. In Refs 25
and 26, overviews of support structure concepts are
given. See Refs 27 and 28 for details on floating wind
turbine concepts and loads. This includes spar buoys,
barges, tension-leg platforms, semi-submersibles, and
solutions combining aspects of these concepts. Sta-
tionkeeping of floating wind turbines is realized using
catenary or taut mooring lines. Even if the dynamic
behavior of an OWT depends strongly on the support
structure type, an attempt is made to list the general
characteristics herein.
The structure of an OWT is generally slender
and heavily loaded on top. Due to the importance of
cost efficiency, support structures are relatively light
weight and compliant and are, therefore, prone to vi-
brations from the structural side. The structures are
exposed to significant ocean loads such as regular and
irregular waves and currents (cf., Ocean Waves). The
first eigenfrequency of current support structures is
below 0.4 Hz, close to the wave frequency range,
which has most of its power below 0.3 Hz. The de-
scribed properties may lead to vibrating structures
and couplings between the moving structure and the
water-induced load (see influence of relative veloc-
ity in Support Structure and Hydrodynamic Loads
Calculation).
The rotor is a large and heavy rotating part of the ma-
chine meant to produce torque from the wind based
on aerodynamic lift. This results in massive aerody-
namic loading of the slender and compliant blades,
mainly in blade flapwise direction f depending on the
local wind vector (cf., Wind). Local aerodynamics in
the rotating system are complex and rotational lift en-
hancement and stall delay can play important roles.30
Mainly due to unsteady inflow, dynamic stall effects,
that is, flow separation and reattachment behavior
differing from the quasistatic phenomena, may lead
to significantly changing blade loads. Aerodynamic
tower effects, that is, a local wind velocity dip in front
of the tower, produce a dip in aerodynamic loads as a
blade passes the tower leading to significant periodic
excitations (3-P excitation in the fixed frame). The ro-
tor spinning through a turbulent wind field, where a
blade passes a local gust several times (eddy slicing),
leads to excitation of the 3-P frequency (and higher
harmonics) as well.
As an example, due to rotor imbalances, the ma-
chine is excited once per revolution (1-P excitation).
Wind shear leads to periodically changing loads once
per revolution for each blade, with higher wind speeds
experienced when the blade points upward leading
to additional loads compared to those experienced
by a downward pointing blade. Yaw errors cause a
comparable effect as the blade moves into the wind
for half a rotation and out of the wind for the sec-
ond half in these cases. The rotation itself leads to
Coriolis loads, centrifugal loads, centrifugal stiffening

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Advanced Review
of the blades, and gyroscopic loads during yaw and
pitch movement. Gravity of the blades changes sign
once per revolution leading to, for example, periodic
blade bending moment changes that are significant in
amplitude and number of cycles and increasingly im-
portant for larger and heavier blades. The example
of the ‘NREL 5-MW baseline turbine’31 at the ‘K13
Deep Water Site’16 in the Dutch North Sea with a
lifetime of Ttot = 20 years and a turbine availability of
Av = 90% (all realistic values), leads to the following
values for the edgewise blade root bending-moment
amplitude (Mroot ) and the number of cycles (N20 )
due to gravity.
Mroot = 3.6 MNm N20 = 9.4 × 10 . 7
As a comparison, the average of the flapwise
blade root bending moment (the main aerodynamic
load due to rotor thrust) is Mroot, fl ≈ 7.5 MNm for
the same turbine at rated speed.
Coupled Effects, Important Nonlinearities
and Summarized Loads
The system properties of an OWT include the follow-
ing nonlinear effects:
r Blade-pitch (and therefore aerodynamic
loads) and generator-torque are actively con-
trolled turbine parameters. This means that,
for example, generator-torque cannot be de-
scribed as a simple function of an input pa-
rameter such as instantaneous wind speed.
r Aeroelastic effects are of a highly nonlinear
nature. In partial loading operation, the ro-
tor thrust force increases with the wind speed.
A blade vibrating in a flapwise bending mode
that is moving into the wind experiences a rel-
ative wind speed that is the sum of the global
wind speed, the blade ‘rigid body movement’,
due to the rotor rotation, and the velocity due
to the elastic deflection (blade and support
structure). The instantaneous relative wind
speed experienced by the blade is higher than
it would be for a rigid blade and the aero-
dynamic thrust increases as a result. This in-
creased thrust against the bending direction
decelerates the blade. When moving back,
the blade is decelerated again for the same
reason. This aerodynamic damping may lead
to a turbine that is switched off experienc-
ing higher support-structure fatigue loads,
than an operating turbine, as in case of the
nonoperating turbine, wave excitation is not
reduced by aerodynamic damping.32 How-
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ever, the edgewise damping may be small or
even negative. At overrated wind speed, the
thrust force decreases with increasing wind
speed, possibly leading to negative damping
that increases the amplitudes of the respec-
tive blade vibrations. Torsional flutter, that
is, the effect of periodically changing angles
of attack and therefore aerodynamic loads,
leads to increased motion in a coupled blade
mode (bending and torsion) and may lead
to a significant nonlinear increase of blade
loads.33, 34
r The dynamic properties of the system depend
on the turbine status. Blade bending eigen-
modes and frequencies, for example, depend
on rotor speed due to effects such as the
aforementioned centrifugal stiffening. As a
result, dynamic amplification factors change
and system answers to excitations with the
same amplitude and frequency are different
for different rotational speeds.35
r OWTs have nonlinear ‘components’. A grid
loss, for example, leads to an abrupt torque
loss. In so-called Fault Ride Through (FRT)
situations, turbines run through grid errors
without shutting down, even if certain loads
increase significantly. Short circuits lead to
peaks in generator torque resulting in heavy
rotor loads. The soil, in which OWTs with
piled support structures are fixed, provides
large uncertainties. However, it is commonly
accepted that force-displacement relation-
ships for embedded piles are not linear.
r Rotor blades are usually fiber-reinforced
composite structures allowing large deflec-
tions. For large deflections, second-order ef-
fects in bending may become significant lead-
ing to nonlinear force-displacement relations
in blade-bending directions.
Summing up, OWTs are loaded (1) statically
due to mean wind and mean currents (horizontal
loads) and gravity on nonrotating components (verti-
cal loads). Furthermore, (2) periodic loads occur due
to gravity on rotating components, regular waves,
wind shear, tower disturbances, and yaw errors;
and (3) stochastic loads result from irregular waves
and turbulent wind. Finally, (4) turbine start-ups and
shutdowns, gusts, extreme waves and meandering
wakes of neighboring turbines lead to transient loads
with significant absolute values and gradients. Com-
bined with compliant structures and the turbine life-
time, this leads, in many cases, to highly dynamic
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 WIREs Energy and Environment
F I G U R E 8 Calculated coupled vibration mode (strongly
exaggerated) including blade bending and support structure modes
(global bending and local bending at lowest brace).
systems with fatigue loads being design driving for
several components.
Support structure and blade natural frequencies,
as well as the main rotor excitation frequencies, are in
a comparable range for current OWTs. The proxim-
ity of eigenfrequencies of different components leads
to coupled structural effects that are visible in cou-
pled vibration modes, for example, including different
component modes (shown in Figure 8 again for the
NREL 5-MW design on a jacket support structure36 ).
Due to the importance of dynamics, the first
global natural frequency of the system is a key de-
sign parameter for the support structure. On the ba-
sis of the value of this frequency and the rotor ro-
tational speeds of the turbine, the support structures
are grouped as soft–soft structures (first natural fre-
quency under 1-P excitation), soft–stiff (first natu-
ral frequency between 1-P and 3-P excitation) and
stiff–stiff structures (first natural frequency over 3-P
excitation). Excitation frequency ranges, natural fre-
quencies, and resulting resonance areas are usually
visualized in a Campbell diagram (see, e.g., Ref 37,
p. 47).
Wind loading is much more important and com-
plex in OWTs than for oil and gas structures. How-
ever, the magnitude of loads resulting from wind,
waves and currents is highly dependent on which sup-
port structure and turbine type is used and hydrody-
namic loads may contribute 50% to the total loading
for smaller turbines on monopiles or less than 10% to
Volume 00, September/October 2012 
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OWT loads and design
the total loading for very large turbines mounted on
jacket structures. See Ref 38 for details on fractions
of the total load resulting from wind and waves for
several types of loads.
AERO-HYDRO-SERVO-ELASTIC
TOOLS FOR OFFSHORE WIND
TURBINE SIMULATION
Coupled Simulation Using the Respective Tools de-
scribes how OWTs are typically modeled in coupled
tools. Each tool features (slightly) different levels of
detail modeling the different components, and a large
variety of tools are available. However, Capabilities
of Currently Available Tools provides an overview
that is mainly based on Task 23g (Offshore Code
Comparison Collaboration project, OC3) and Task
30h (Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration Con-
tinuation Project, OC4) of the Wind Implementing
Agreement of the International Energy Agency (IEA
Wind).
Aeroelastic tools are constantly adapted to meet
the arising needs of a developing offshore wind sec-
tor. Therefore, verification and validationi are contin-
uously needed (see Tool Verification and Validation)
and work is done on new developments (see Current
Developments).
Coupled Simulation Using the Respective
Tools
Coupled simulation in general is described herein with
a special focus on the main load sources wind (see Ro-
tor and Aerodynamic Loads Calculation) and waves
(see Support Structure and Hydrodynamic Loads Cal-
culation). Figure 9 shows the system OWT as it is typi-
cally modeled in an aeroelastic tool using the example
of a turbine on a piled jacket-type substructure. The
subsystems are shown in boxes, the arrows represent
interactions.
Soil and foundation are usually implemented in
one module. In the simplest case, the foundation be-
low mudline is assumed to be rigid. If the structure
below mudline, that is, piles and soil, are included in
the model, this may be realized using linear elastic or
nonlinear soil models j usually combined with linear
elastic piles.
The control system component in general al-
lows for direct setup of simple pitch controllers (PI-
control). For the use of more sophisticated operation
and control routines, interfaces may be provided. An
interface to a dynamic link library of the type that
is used in the software Bladed41 might be seen as a
standard by now. For simulation of modern wind
9
Advanced Review
Control system
Rotor Drivetrain
Wind Structure nacelle
Rotor nacelle assembly
Tower
Water Substructure
Soil Foundation
Support structure
F I G U R E 9 OWT model in a coupled tool with boxes for
components and arrows for interactions.
turbines, a control system, including at least blade-
pitch and generator-torque control, is common.
The drivetrain may be separated into mechan-
ical and electrical subcomponents. At minimum, a
drivetrain rotational stiffness and damping summed
in one rotational degree of freedom (DOF) and a (me-
chanical) generator in terms of a rotational speed–
torque relationship needs to be taken into account.
The grid influences the turbine behavior, espe-
cially if grid errors occur, (cf., System Properties of
Offshore Wind Turbines and Resulting Loads) and is
therefore included.
Rotor and Aerodynamic Loads Calculation
Wind is described in three-dimensional wind vectors
at discrete positions minimally over the rotor swept
area over time stochastically (cf., Short-Term and
Small-Scale Wind Speed Fluctuations). For purposes
of this article, this is the same as a three-dimensional
grid in space, sliding over the wind turbine because
Taylor’s hypothesis is accepted. Constant wind speeds
or simple functions over time (gusts) and space (wind
shear) can be simulated. The wind speeds at posi-
tions (or time steps) between the given points are
interpolated.
The rotor is modeled flexible because rotor
blades are compliant structures allowing large deflec-
tions that need to be taken into account (cf., System
Properties of Offshore Wind Turbines and Result-
ing Loads). Several structural–dynamic approaches
10
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are common (cf., Capabilities of Currently Available
Tools).
Aerodynamic loads are calculated using lift and
Grid
drag coefficients usually provided in tables that are
based on two-dimensional wind tunnel airfoil testing
combined with a simple aerodynamic theory.
The blade-element momentum (BEM) theory is
developed in Ref 42 to describe the aerodynamics of
airplane propellers and was applied to WT rotors in
Ref 43. It became a standard in engineering aerody-
namic calculation and is described in many definitive
books on WT (see, e.g., Ref 13). The theory com-
bines the blade-element and the momentum theory. In
the blade-element theory it is assumed that the blade
aerodynamics can be described with two dimensional
airfoils (blade-elements) that are independent of the
neighboring elements for calculation of aerodynamic
forces based on local flow conditions. These forces
are then integrated over the blade length. The mo-
mentum theory assumes that the loss of momentum
through the rotor area is the work that is done by the
air flow on the rotor. On the basis of this, the local
flow conditions can be calculated that are the input
for the loads calculation with blade-element theory.
Combining both, a simple static theory to iterate the
aerodynamic forces is described. To overcome its ba-
sic restrictions, BEM theory is extended with modifi-
cations to account for hub and tip losses. A correction
for yaw errors and the so called turbulent wake state
are included (originally described in Refs 42 and 44).
During fast changes in inflow conditions, dynamic
stall occurs. This nonlinear and unsteady separation
and reattachment of the flow is usually accounted for
using semiempirical corrections.45
A more general theory for the description of
the pressure distribution over a rotor is the potential-
flow-based generalized dynamic wake (GDW) Theory
as described in Ref 46. It includes three-dimensional
and unsteady effects and the respective equations can
be solved directly (non-iterative). Aerodynamics of
wind turbines are described in more detail in Ref 13
and summarized in the context of wind turbine tool
development in Ref 47.
With the relative velocities at the rotor, aeroe-
lastic effects (cf., System Properties of Offshore Wind
Turbines and Resulting Loads) are included in the
simulation. Ref 48 gives a detailed overview on wind
turbine aerodynamics.
Support Structure and Hydrodynamic Loads
Calculation
The substructure and tower are modeled as flexi-
ble structures that feature possibilities for loads cal-
culation on the submerged members based on the

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 WIREs Energy and Environment
Morison approach49 and on a simple drag force cal-
culation from wind for the structures parts above the
waterline. Buoyancy loads and load effects that re-
sult from marine growth, as an example, need to be
taken into account. In the case of floating wind tur-
bines, at least a simple mooring line model needs to
be included.
Regular (cf., Wave Theories) and irregular (cf.,
Short-Term and Long-Term Stochastic Sea-State De-
scription) water wave kinematics are used as in-
put in the semiempiric Morison approach. Herein,
the total load per length is a superposition of
an acceleration-dependent inertia component and a
velocity-dependent drag component. Morison loads
depend, among others, on the hydrodynamic added
mass (i.e., the water mass that may be interpreted as
moving with the structure through the water), an in-
ertia coefficient cm and a drag coefficient cd . Surface
effects are not taken into account. There is no damp-
ing due to wave radiation, for example. The Morison
approach leads to an inertia component with a phase
shift of ϕ = 90◦ and a drag component in phase
with the water surface elevation.
The basic formulation of the Morison equation
is extended, for example, with terms for tangential
drag along a member or using a modified inertia term
to account for larger diameter members.50 However,
it is still an approach with strong restrictions and em-
pirical coefficients that have to be derived from tank
testing, for example. See Ref 51 for a comprehensive
critique of the Morison approach that is widely used
primarily due to its simplicity.
Capabilities of Currently Available Tools
Developersk and modeling capabilities of several tools
are shown in Table 1. Aerodynamic calculations are
based on BEM and GDW (cf., Rotor and Aerody-
namic Loads Calculation) including dynamic stall
corrections in most of the tools. Some tools use very
simple methods to include dynamic effects in the
aerodynamics calculations also called GDW. How-
ever, this is not differentiated herein. Hydrodynamic
loads are calculated basically with Airy wave theory,
stream function wave theories, or user-defined kine-
matics combined with the Morison equation. Other
wave theories are not detailed here. The relatively
new approach that allows for embedding an ex-
treme wave into an irregular sea state52 is not in-
cluded in the table. Methods based on potential flow
are implemented in a few tools. Most of the tools
provide interfaces to include controller DLLs and
simple algorithms are usually directly implemented.
Alaska/Wind, FAST, HAWC2, and and MicroSAS-
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OWT loads and design
OWT provide interfaces to Matlab for controls de-
velopment. Structural modeling is based on Multi-
body formulations (MBS), modal reduced systems,
the finite element method (FEM) or combinations
of those. The (catenary) mooring system of a float-
ing wind turbine may be simulated in some of the
tools using user-defined force–displacement relation-
ships or quasistatic catenary equations. For further
information on the tools, refer to the publicly avail-
able manuals (e.g., HAWC2, Bladed, FAST), the
Web pages of the software developers (e.g., Ansys,
Adams, SIMPACK), and publications presenting the
tool development to the scientific community (see,
e.g., Ref 53 for Flex5-ASASNL, Ref 54 for Flex5-
Poseidon, Ref 33 for ADCoS, the basis for ADCoS-
Offshore).
Tool Verification and Validation
Code-to-code verifications allow for simplification of
load cases and models and, therefore, make it possi-
ble to trace back differences to the underlying sources.
A code-to-code comparison may get close to a vali-
dation for newly developed codes if those are tested
against tools that were extensively validated in ad-
vance. In contrast, during a validation process, load
cases, which means in this case the influence from
the physical environment, cannot be simplified, even
if ‘simple’ external conditions may be selected from
long-term measurements. Furthermore, it is hard to
analyze the extent to which a difference found be-
tween simulated and measured data is due to mod-
eling errors, measurement errors or resulting from
limitations of implemented theories. In practice, it is
often a challenge for researchers to get detailed design
data for a given turbine and structure due to confiden-
tiality limitations. Obtaining offshore measurements
is costly. However, after gaining a certain confidence
in a newly developed code, validation is inevitable.
In the aforementioned OC3 project, the NREL
5-MW baseline wind turbine on a monopile with fixed
foundation, a monopile with flexible foundation, a
tripod and a floating spar buoy were simulated in
four subsequent phases. The results are summarized
in Ref 55. More details on tripod modeling in phase
III is provided in Ref 56.
In Phase II, three simplified linear soil models
were used: An apparent fixity (AF) model, a cou-
pled springs (CS) model and a distributed springs (DS)
model.l A set of load cases with increasing complexity
was defined and run.
In Figure 10, results from a load case including
the fully flexible OWT on the monopile with flexible
foundation under loading from stochastic wind and
11
 Advanced Review wires.wiley.com/wene

T A B L E 1 Overview of Aero-Hydro-Servo-Elastic Modeling Capabilities

Code Developer Aerodynamics (aero) Hydrodynamics (hydro) Control (servo) Structure (elastic)
str.
ADAMS-WaveLoads MSC + NREL + LUH BEM or GDW + DS Airy or UD + ME, Airy + PF DLL or UD Turbine: MBS,
+ ME Moorings: QSCE,
UDFD
ADCoS-Offshore ADC + IWES BEM + DS Airystr. or UD or Stream + ME DLL or UD FEM
Alaska/Wind IFM BEM or GDW + DS Airystr. or UD or Stream + ME DLL or UD or SM FEMP + Modal /
MBS
ASHES NTNU BEM Airy + ME to be developed FEM
BHawC RisøDTU + Siemens BEM or GDW + DS Airystr. or UD + ME DLL or UD MBS / FEM
Bladed GH BEM or GDW + DS Airystr. or UD or Stream + ME DLL Turbine: FEMP +
Modal / MBS,
Moorings: UDFD
Bladed Multibody GH BEM or GDW + DS Airystr. or UD or Stream + ME DLL or UD MBS
FAST NREL BEM or GDW + DS Airystr. or UD + ME, Airy + PF DLL or UD or SM Turbine: FEMP +
+ ME Modal / MBS,
Moorings: QSCE
FAST-Ansys NREL, Ansys, ABS BEM or GDW + DS Airystr. or UD or Stream + ME DLL or UD or SM FEMP + Modal /
MBS
FAST-CHARM3D NREL, TAMU, ABS BEM or GDW + DS Airy + PF + ME DLL or UD or SM Turbine: FEMP +
Modal / MBS,
Moorings: FEM
FEDEM WindPower Fedem BEM or GDW + DS Airystr. or Stream + ME DLL or UD FEM + Modal / MBS
FLEX5 RisøDTU BEM or GDW + DS Airystr. or UD or Stream + ME DLL or UD FEMP + Modal /
MBS
FLEX5-AQWA RisøDTU + Ansys + BEM or GDW + DS Airy +PF + ME DLL or UD Turbine: Modal /
REpower MBS, Moorings:
FEM
FLEX5-ASAS(NL) RisøDTU + Ansys + BEM or GDW + DS Airystr. or UD or Stream + ME DLL or UD FEM + Modal / MBS
REpower
FLEX5-Poseidon RisøDTU + SWE + BEM or GDW + DS Airystr. or UD or Stream + ME DLL or UD FEM + Modal / MBS
LUH
GAST NTUA BEM or 3DFW + DS Airystr. + PF or Stream + ME UD MBS / FEM
HAWC RisøDTU BEM or GDW + DS Airystr. or UD + ME DLL or UD
FEM
HAWC2 RisøDTU BEM or GDW + DS Airystr. or UD + ME DLL or UD, SM
Turbine: MBS / FEM,
Moorings: UDFD
MicroSAS-OWT McDermott + NREL BEM or GDW + DS Airy or UD + ME DLL or UD or SM FEMP + Modal /
+ AUTh MBS
OneWind IWES BEM or GDW + DS Airystr. or UD + ME DLL or UD MBS / FEM,
Moorings: QSCE
Phatas-WMCFem ECN + WMC BEM + DS Airystr. or Stream + ME DLL FEM
S4WT Samtech BEM + DS or UD Airystr. or Stream or UD + ME DLL or UD Turbine: FEM / MBS.
Moorings: FEM /
UDFD
Simo MARINTEK BEM Airy + PF + ME DLL Turbine: MBS,
Moorings: QSCE,
MBS
SIMPACK SIMPACK BEM or GDW + DS None DLL or UD MBS
USFOS-vpOne SINTEF + NTNU + BEM + DS Airystr. or Stream + ME DLL or UD FEM
Virtual Prototyping
3Dfloat IFE-UMB BEM or GDW Airy or UD + ME UD Turbine: FEM,
Moorings: FEM,
UDFD
BEM, blade-element momentum theory; GDW, generalized dynamic wake theory; 3DFW, free wake vortex particle method; DS, dynamic stall implementation; Airy, Airy wave
theory; Airystr. , Airy wave theory with stretching method(s); Stream, stream function wave theory; ME, Morison equation; PF, linear potential flow with radiation and diffraction;
DLL, external dynamic link library; SM, interface to Simulink with MATLAB; UD, user-defined subroutine; UDFD, user-defined force–displacement relationships; QSCE, quasistatic
catenary equations; FEM, finite-element method; FEMP , finite element method for mode preprocessing only; MBS, multibody-dynamics formulation; Modal, modal reduced systems.

12 
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 WIREs Energy and Environment
F I G U R E 1 0 Legend for the OC3 Phase II results, Power spectra for fore-aft monopile shear force and respective monopile bending moment at
mudline under combined stochastic wind and wave loading.
waves are shown as an example. The legend on top
of the figure identifies the partner who submitted the
results,m the software used and the implemented foun-
dation model. The graphs show the power spectra for
fore-aft monopile shear force and respective monopile
bending moment at mudline. In general, most results
compare very well among the codes.
Figure 11 shows results for an OC3 Phase III
load case featuring a rigid OWT model under deter-
ministic wave loads (no wind). The tripod structure
and the tripod load output positions, the legend for
the OC3 Phase III resultsn and the fore-aft bending
moments at positions 1–6 are shown (top down from
left to right). The comparisons, in general, agreed
quite well, see Ref 55 for a detailed interpretation
of the results shown in Figures 10 and 11.
All model descriptions and simulation results
data from the OC3 project are available to the publico
and can be used in the OWT simulation community. p
The OC3 work continues in its follow-up project
OC4, in which a jacket-type support structure and
a semisubmersible floater are simulated in combina-
tion with the NREL turbine.57
Apart from such large projects, internal code
comparisons occur in many organizations. Examples
are the verification of Alaska/Wind against Bladed,
FAST and FLEX5 at Chemnitz University58 or veri-
fying the in-house developed coupling between Posei-
don and Flex5 against Bladed as shown in Ref 59.
A detailed description of simulation tool and
model validation is not the scope of this paper. In
this context, it is referred in Ref 60. In Ref 60, the
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OWT loads and design
validation of design loads for wind turbines is briefly
described and the validation of simulation tools and
models is characterized as the first part of this design
loads validation process. The paper refers to the re-
spective IEC standards. IEC 61400-1361 gives detailed
information on data acquisition and processing and
refers directly to the (simulated) load cases described
in IEC 61400-13 for comparison.
Extensive measurement campaigns were carried
out during the Beatrice Wind Farm Demonstrator
Projectq where two REpower 5M were installed in 45
m of water on jacket type support structures. Results
are detailed in Ref 62 and the challenge to record suffi-
cient wind and wave data for design validation during
the campaign is described. Another example is the Re-
search at Alpha Ventus (RAVE) initiative,r a research
framework accompanying the construction and op-
eration of the German Alpha Ventus test site with
its 6 AREVA Multibrid turbines on tripod structures
and 6 REpower machines on jacket structures. During
this effort, extensive measurement data is gathered.
First results of the ongoing project were presented in
Ref 63. During the HyWind project,s in which the
world’s first large OWT on a floating structure was
installed, an extensive measurement campaign was
carried out.
Current Developments
Developments are ongoing and further research needs
are identified in many areas including the following
topics.
13
Advanced Review wires.wiley.com/wene

)
(

( ) ( )
)
)

(
(

( ) ( )
)

)
(

( ) ( )

F I G U R E 1 1 Tripod structure and tripod load output positions, legend for the following results and fore-aft bending moments at positions 1–6
(positions 1–6: top down from left to right).

14 
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 WIREs Energy and Environment
r Verification and validation of tools including
wave loads simulation on branched bottom-
mounted structures is still ongoing (cf., Tool
Verification and Validation). More accurate
modeling of these structures in coupled tools
is being developed.64, 65
r Tools for floating turbines66 are currently
being further developed, especially to ac-
count for higher-order hydrodynamic theo-
ries for improved accuracy of wave loads.
Mooring lines dynamics are to be included
in OWT simulation tools. In Ref 67 the
implementation of a dynamic mooring line
model in HAWC2 may be found as an
example.
r It is commonly understood that BEM (cf. Ro-
tor and Aerodynamic Loads Calculation) is
not accurate, especially for some load cases,
for example, including large yaw errors. Sev-
eral tools already have the GDW theory im-
plemented, other groups are working on this
topic. The next level of complexity to be in-
cluded in WT codes are vortex methods.68
However, even more detailed aerodynamic
representations (see, e.g., Ref 69) are be-
ing developed. Some sophisticated codes use
blade-element theory for the blade loads
coupled with computational fluid dynamics
(CFD) and a momentum sink approach for
the induced velocities and the wake. Full CFD
around the blades and in the near wake is a
current research topic.
r Nonlinear blade deflection models account-
ing for loads on deflected blades (cf.,Coupled
Effects, Important Nonlinearities, and Sum-
marized Loads) are a current research
topic70 ; they are already included in some of
the tools.33
r Especially for large drivetrains, simplified
modeling (cf. Section Coupled Simulation Us-
ing the Respective Tools) leads to inaccurate
load assumptions. More detailed drivetrain
models may be included, for example, us-
ing interfaces as realized in Bladed for gear
box models through a defined interface to ex-
ternal software compiled as DLLs (dynamic
link library).t Another approach is to extend
available multibody drivetrain libraries for
global wind turbine dynamics simulation as
described in Ref 71 using SIMPACK. In Ref
72 it is mentioned that existing drivetrain
libraries can be included in the OneWind
Tool.
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OWT loads and design
r Offshore wind parks usually are arrays of
many turbines and each turbine is heavily ex-
posed to the wakes of other turbines. The
result is a global velocity loss and higher tur-
bulence. Some coupled tools already include
simplified wake models (see, e.g., Refs 73 and
74). ‘Wakes’ are one of key the issues for off-
shore wind development carved out by the
UK Carbon Trust.u
r Integration of ice loads simulation in cou-
pled tools is currently realized (see, e.g.,
Ref 75 and verification and validation of the
respective tools is an ongoing process.
r As mentioned in Tool Verification and Val-
idation, strongly simplified models are used
for soil modeling and linearized models are
usually based on the p-y-approach originally
developed for small piles in sand only.76
More detailed models and measurements
are used to crosscheck the results. How-
ever, especially damping properties of the
soil are subject of ongoing research (see, e.g.,
Ref 77).
r Current research work is realized concerning
so-called ‘smart rotors’ including actively or
passively controlled aerodynamic modifica-
tion of the blade during operation.78
r For design optimization of support struc-
tures, design process and tool capabilities
are extended to include site- and structure-
specific load mitigation systems (i.e., con-
trols). Recent research has shown that by
including specific controls into the design
process and simulations of offshore support
structures, cost-effective solutions can be
obtained.79 Specific load phenomena such as
extensive sideways structural vibrations77, 80 ,
measurement techniques such as LIDAR81, 82
or structural dampers83 are in the focus.
DESIGN WORK IN THE CONTEXT OF
STANDARDS AND GUIDELINES
System properties and loading of an OWT differ sig-
nificantly from properties and loading of an oil and
gas structure (cf., System Properties of Offshore Wind
Turbines and Resulting Loads, Rotor and Aerody-
namic Loads Calculation, and Support Structure and
Hydrodynamic Loads Calculation) leading to differ-
ent design cases. There is, therefore, a high need
for differentiated and technically feasible design and
certification procedures, taking the experience from
15
Advanced Review
F I G U R E 1 2 Part of the design load case table from IEC. (Table from IEC 61400-3 (edition 2009), licenced by VDE Verband der Elektrotechnik
Elektronik Informationstechnik e.V.—Department DKE. Please take care to always use the latest edition you can get at www.vde-verlag.de and
www.iec.ch.)
oil and gas, but also the experiences and, in some
respect, more complex, requirements from wind en-
ergy into account. Several standards and guidelines
were set up in the wind energy community to face
these challenges. For example, the international stan-
dards from IEC that define among others the design
and load considerations for onshore3 and OWT.10
Guidelines, such as DNV84 and GL,8 are based on ex-
periences from offshore oil and gas and were extended
for offshore wind purposes. The advantage of these
documents is that they, compared to the ones from
IEC, also contain details in terms of structural analy-
sis and certification, that is, specific proofs of weld
connections in the offshore context. Finally, there
can be special requirements in certain countries. In
Germany, all design certifications have to follow the
guidelines from BSH,85 which is in charge of giving
permits for projects in German waters outside terri-
torial waters. However, there is a need to associate
these requirements with internationally valid stan-
dards. The purpose of the standards and guidelines
is to support the process leading to the full project
certificate and later monitor the fabrication, installa-
tion, operation and decommissioning. The focus here
is limited to the design itself and, in particular, to the
considered load effects in connection to the prior dis-
cussed environment (Description of the Marine En-
vironment), system properties (System Properties of
Offshore Wind Turbines and Resulting Loads), and
tools (Aero-Hydro-Servo-Elastic Tools for Offshore
Wind Turbine Simulation).
16 
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Fatigue and Extreme Loads
The setup of relevant design load cases is dependent
on the selected standard or guideline. The cases are
listed in a so-called design load case table as shown
in Figure 12.
In general, there is a distinction between fatigue
(indicated as ‘F’ in Figure 12) and ultimate load cases
(indicated as ‘U’, respectively) and again between op-
erational, start-ups, shutdowns, parked/idling, fault,
and transportation, installation, and maintenance de-
sign situations. Figure 12 also defines the wind (NTM,
normal turbulence model; ETM, extreme turbulence
model; ECD, extreme coherent gust with direction
change; EWS, extreme wind shear) and wave (NSS,
normal sea state; NWH, normal wave height; SSS,
severe sea state) conditions to be considered, but
also aspects such as directionalities (COD, codirec-
tional; UNI, unidirectional; MUL, multidirectional;
MIS, misaligned), currents (NCM, normal current
model), or water levels (MSL, mean sea level; NWLR,
normal water level range).
As an example for fatigue, the design load case
DLC1.2 can be stated, which can result in extensive
simulations of the present aerodynamic and hydrody-
namic load effects. Here, the entire wind speed range
has to be taken into account. For each wind speed bin
(cf., Long-Term Wind Statistics), there are again dif-
ferent wave conditions (both in terms of heights and
periods) possible (cf., wave scatter diagram in Ocean
Waves). This means that there can be up to 30–40 dif-
ferent wind–wave combinations per bin. In addition,
Volume 00, September/October 2012
 WIREs Energy and Environment
for each wind and wave condition, different corre-
lations of wind and wave directionality occur. With
the described multiplications, the designer may end
up with more than 50,000 cases just for fatigue load-
ing theoretically. However, in practice, this number is
drastically reduced as described below. The loads re-
sulting from the simulated time series are then extrap-
olated according to the probability of environmen-
tal conditions used in the simulations for the turbine
lifetime.
Depending on the support structure type, the
amount of load simulations can be reduced in coop-
eration with the certification agency. An example is
reduction due to symmetries. For structures with large
cylindrical shapes such as monopiles, which are very
sensitive against misalignment effects from wind and
waves in general, the loading differences are not too
large for waves acting from 90◦ or 270◦ . The induced
vibration is similar. Therefore, easily half of the di-
rectionalities, and thus simulations, can be excluded
or, in other words, their probabilities can be trans-
ferred to the ones with 180◦ difference. Still, for such
a reduction, it is important to include all specific load-
ing phenomena, such as effects from secondary steel
components such as J-tubes or boat landings.
For ultimate load calculations, the simulation
amount is as extensive as it is for fatigue. Here, the
combination of probable extreme load events from
wind and waves together with operational errors in
the turbine, and accidental risks such as ship colli-
sions, leads to a significant amount of cases to be con-
sidered. Most common environmental extreme events
are wind 50-year gusts or 50-year extreme waves.
However, rated wind speed, where the rotor thrust
is highest, is also problematic what means that op-
erational conditions can lead to the ultimate loads.
For extreme waves combined with gusts, the capa-
bilities of simulation tools are an important factor
to accurately model the events. Former tool packages
simulated, for example, extreme wave events in a qua-
sistatic manner and added a dynamic amplification
factor, because they were not able to include the dy-
namic response together with relatively flexible struc-
tures and hydrodynamic nonlinearities. This induces
a lot of inaccuracies; therefore, the possibility of em-
bedding an extreme wave into an irregular sea state
was developed (cf., Capabilities of Currently Avail-
able Tools). Other special requirements for simula-
tion tools in the context of ultimate load simulations
are the modeling abilities of turbine failures. This in-
cludes in the most cases specifically programmed con-
troller devices being able to simulate faults correctly.
Examples are errors in the yaw device, where the tur-
bines suddenly turn the nacelle out of the wind, or
Volume 00, September/October 2012 
C 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
OWT loads and design
a pitch motor sticks and therefore causes a misalign-
ment among the blade pitch angles, which results in
significantly unbalanced loading. Here, appropriate
supervisory control strategies also are important to
include in the simulation and the design process to
reduce the loads.
The General Design Process
In the wind sector, a parallel process between turbine
and support structure design has been established, as
illustrated in Figure 13.
As a key element, the site has to be investigated
in terms of environmental, but also geographic con-
ditions. This data, together with some project-specific
information, is then summarized in a so-called design
basis. This document contains all design-relevant in-
formation, that is needed in the design process. An
example can be found in Ref 16. On the basis of the
design basis, the RNA and support structure is ini-
tially designed, where the RNA is mainly given as
a standard product and certified for a typical wind
class. The support structure design has to be site spe-
cific. To obtain a site-specific design, the loads on the
support structure from the RNA and from the hydro-
dynamics have to be combined. The most accurate
solution includes the use of a coupled design tool (cf.,
Aero-Hydro-Servo-Elastic Tools for Offshore Wind
Turbine Simulation). However, often it leads to con-
fidentiality problems between the turbine manufac-
turer and the support structure designer, because the
turbine design is confidential and thus the data can-
not be provided to the support structure designer.
Therefore, partly integrated approaches may still be
used, where loads at a predefined interface (such as the
tower flange) are exchanged between the turbine man-
ufacturer and the support structure designer. Commu-
nication between the turbine manufacturer and the
support structure designer is extremely important to
guarantee an efficient process flow during the nec-
essary iterations. The process incorporates load and
load-effect calculations for the complete wind tur-
bine comprising the support structure and RNA.10
The output of this calculation is then used as load in-
put in detailed FE models of the specific components
(e.g., blade, hub, tower, or substructure) for the de-
tailed design. The design process continues until the
structural integrity has been verified and the certifica-
tion agency ensures the accuracy of the design. In case
of the described problem, this design approach might
change in the near future, as recent developments en-
abled a further solution. Here, the turbine manufac-
turer provides the RNA as a black box (e.g., as DLL)
to the support structure designer, who then couples
17
Advanced Review wires.wiley.com/wene

F I G U R E 1 3 Design process for offshore wind turbines. (Figure 2 of IEC 61400-3 (edition 2009), licenced by VDE Verband der Elektrotechnik
Elektronik Informationstechnik e.V.—Department DKE. Please take care to always use the latest edition you can get at www.vde-verlag.de and
www.iec.ch.)

it to a sophisticated tool for the design of OWT sup-
port structures. Such a development is currently ongo-
ing with the tool package ROSAP (Rambøll Offshore
Structural Analysis Programme).86
CONCLUSION
In this paper, current approaches for the calculation
of loads on OWTs are described.
Description of the Marine Environment de-
scribes the environment and its stochastic nature that
only can be described using statistical methods. Ex-
tensive measurements in the past led to the long- and
short-term wind and wave statistics used today and
described herein.
In System Properties of Offshore Wind Tur-
bines and Resulting Loads, the turbine that experi-
ences these loads and its characteristics are described.
Large and heavy rotating parts, flexible structures and
actively controlled components, interact with static,
periodic, stochastic, and transient loads in a highly
nonlinear system.
As a result of external and system properties, it
is required that simulation tools model the turbine as
a nonlinear system in a coupled time-domain simu-
lation environment (Aero-Hydro-Servo-Elastic Tools
for Offshore Wind Turbine Simulation). Aero- and
hydrodynamics, the flexible structure and the control
system are accounted for in a large set of tools or
tool combinations described herein. There is an on-
going need of code verification and validation that is
accounted for in many projects. Turbine component
developments need to be accounted for in the tools
(e.g., new support structure types such as floaters,

18 
C 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Volume 00, September/October 2012
 WIREs Energy and Environment
or current control strategy developments). The neces-
sity for more accurate aero-, hydro-, and structural
dynamics is expressed in research projects and respec-
tive publications.
Design Work in the Context of Standards and
Guidelines describes standards and guidelines devel-
oped to give engineers advice on how to use the tools,
including the turbine and environment, ending up in
fatigue load cases and ultimate limit-state load cases
including normal operation of the turbine, the shut-
down of the turbine in storm conditions, influences
from damaged components, to finally design reliable
and cost-efficient OWTs.
NOTES
a
The conclusion is to design OWTs, not just to mount
an onshore turbine on an offshore structure. How-
ever, this topic is beyond the scope of this paper.
b
http://www.newmerical.com/index.php/products/
ice3d-cfd-software/ and http://icebox.grc.nasa.gov/
design/lewice.html; accessed September 29, 2011.
c
The significance and even the existence of this gap is
widely discussed (e.g., Ref 15); however, it is used in
engineering applications as described in the following.
d University of Technology (IFM), REpower Systems
http://www.globalwavestatisticsonline.com/. (Ac-
cessed August 17, 2011).
e
‘To impress offshore people with your knowledge
during a night at the bar (next to having a strong
stomach to keep all the alcohol) remember the differ-
ence between jackets and towers. The foundation of
a tower is connected to the frame at the seafloor, a
jacket’s foundation is formed by piles that are driven
through the legs and connected at the top.’ (see Ref 24,
p. 39) In the offshore wind community, both possibil-
ities would be called a jacket as long as legs are con-
nected by braces comparable to the structure shown
in Figure 9 no matter where the piles are connected
or even no matter if piles are used or not.
f
Flapwise: Blade bending around the axis in the rotor
plane, perpendicular to the undeformed blade axis.
Flatwise: Blade bending around the local chordline.
Lead-lag bending: Blade bending around the axis per-
pendicular to the rotor plane, perpendicular to the un-
deformed blade axis. Edgewise bending: Blade bend-
ing around the axis that lies (1) in the cross sectional
area of the blade and (2) perpendicular to the local
chordline (cf., see Ref 29, pages 8, 9).
g
http://www.ieawind.org/Annex_XXIII.html. (Ac-
cessed August 29, 2011).
Volume 00, September/October 2012 
C 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
OWT loads and design
h
http://www.ieawind.org/Task_30/Task30_Public
.html. (Accessed August 29, 2011).
i
Verification and validation are used according to the
following definition in the context of this work. Val-
idation answers the question: ‘Are you building the
right thing?’, here this assures that the tool gives a
valid approximation of the physics in the real world.
This refers to comparisons of calculated results to
measurement data. Verification answers the question
‘Are you building it right?’, that is, the theories or
formulas faultlessly implemented as intended. This is
realized via code-to-code comparisons usually. The
questions in quotes are directly taken from Ref 39.
j
See, for example Ref 40 for the commonly used
p-y-approach modeling the soil using nonlinear force–
displacement relationships.
k
Code developers: National Renewable Energy Lab-
oratory (NREL), MSC.Software (MSC), Ansys Inc.
(Ansys), Texas A&M University (TAMU), American
Bureau of Shipping (ABS), McDermott International
Inc. (McDermott) from the United States; Endowed
Chair for Wind Energy at the Institute for Aircraft
Design at the Universität Stuttgart (SWE), Fraun-
hofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System
Technology IWES (IWES), Leibniz Universität Han-
nover (LUH), Institute of Mechatronics at Chemnitz
SE (REpower), Aero Dynamik Consult Ingenieurge-
sellschaft mbH (ADC), SIMPACK AG (SIMPACK)
from Germany; Risø National Laboratory for Sus-
tainable Energy and Technical University of Danmark
(Risø DTU), Siemens AG—Wind Power (Siemens)
from Denmark; Germanischer Lloyd Garrad Hassan
(GH) from the United Kingdom; Institute for Energy
Technology and the Norwegian University of Life
Sciences (IFE-UMB), Norwegian Marine Technology
Research Institute (MARINTEK), Norwegian Univer-
sity of Science and Technology (NTNU), Fedem Tech-
nology AS (Fedem), SINTEF, Virtual Prototyping A/S
(Virtual Prototyping) from Norway; National Techni-
cal University of Athens (NTUA), Aristotle University
of Thessaloniki (AUTh) from Greece; Energy Center
of the Netherlands (ECN), Knowledge Center Wind
Turbine Materials and Constructions (WMC) from
the Netherlands; Samtech from Belgium.
l
AF: The Monopile is extended using a cantilever
beam with adapted length and stiffness properties
below mudline. CS: Coupled rotational and transla-
tional springs are defined, that is, a stiffness matrix is
defined at mudline. DS: The Monopile below mudline
is modeled and a set of linear springs distributed over
the depth to represents the soil.
19
Advanced Review
m
Except Cener, the National Renewable Energy
Center of Spain, the contributors are mentioned
above.
n
Two versions of Bladed and HAWC 2 were used
here, a version with Euler–Bernoulli beam elements
(EB) for structural modeling and a version with Tim-
oshenko beam elements (Timo). Leibniz Universität
Hannover (LUH) contributed with a combination of
their in house developed WaveLoads code combined
with Ansys.
o .aspx. (Accessed October 19, 2011).
https://oc4.collaborationhost.net/. (Accessed Octo-
ber 19, 2011).
p
Researchers at IWES already took advantage of this
during the development of the software OneWind.
Even though OneWind was not tested within OC3
over the course of the project, the software is now
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The part of this work done at Fraunhofer IWES was funded by the German Federal Ministry
for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety. The authors would like to
thank Julia Gottschall, Gerrit Wolken-Möhlman, and Hristo Lilov for the input concerning the
offshore environment. Thank you for your support to Urs Wihlfahrt, Wojciech Popko, Sebastian
Hetmanczyk, and Mareike Strach (all from IWES).
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