Aero-Elastic-Control-Floater-

Mooring Coupled Dynamic

Y. H. Bae
Department of Civil Engineering,
Texas A&M University,
College Station, TX 77843
e-mail: yoonhyeok.bae@tamu.edu
M. H. Kim
Department of Civil Engineering,
Texas A&M University,
College Station, TX 77843
e-mail: m-kim3@tamu.edu
Analysis of Floating Offshore
Wind Turbine in Maximum
Operation and Survival
Conditions
Increasing numbers of floating offshore wind turbines (FOWTs) are planned in the com-
ing years due to their high potential in the massive generation of clean energy from ocean
wind. In the present study, a numerical prediction tool has been developed for the fully
coupled dynamic analysis of an FOWT system in the time domain including aero-
loading, tower/blade elasticity, blade-rotor dynamics and control, mooring dynamics,
and platform motions so that the influence of aero-elastic-control dynamics on the hull-
mooring performance and vice versa can be assessed. The Hywind spar design with a
5 MW National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) turbine is selected as an example
and two different collinear wind-wave-current environmental conditions, maximum
operational and survival conditions, are applied for this study. The maximum operational
condition means the maximum environmental condition with normal blade-turbine opera-
tion and the survival condition represents the extreme situation without any blade-
turbine operation. Through this study, it is seen that the ultimate-loading environments
for different structural components of the FOWT can be different. The developed technol-
ogy and numerical tool are readily applicable to the design of any type of future FOWTs
in any combinations of irregular waves, dynamic winds, and steady currents.
[DOI: 10.1115/1.4025029]

Keywords: renewable wind energy, floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT), aero-elastic-
control-floater-mooring coupled dynamics, spar hull, maximum operational condition,
collinear wind-wave-current, survival condition, accelerations, mooring tension, blade-
root shear force/bending moment

Introduction The load analysis of several floating platform configurations

has been conducted [7]. In the case of the Hywind spar-type wind
Wind is the fastest growing clean and renewable energy source.
turbine [8], the coupling effects between the blade/tower/turbine
Until recently, most of the wind-farm development has been lim-
and hull with mooring lines have been investigated for normal
ited to the land and shallow water coastal regions. Recently, two
operational condition [9] and for the survival condition [10]. It is
representative full-scale FOWTs (the Hywind spar and Windfloat
seen that the maximum accelerations at the tower top can be
semisubmersible [1]) have been successfully installed and oper-
appreciably increased due to the combined effects of tower elastic
ated at water depths of 320 m and 44 m, repectively. Inspired by
modes and hull 6-DOF motions. In this study, the same Hywind
these successful projects, several countries began to plan more
spar-type wind turbine is employed in order to compare the global
FOWT units and farms. Although they are considered to be more
performance and dynamic coupling effect in the maximum opera-
difficult to design compared to the fixed type, floating wind farms
tional and survival conditions.
in deeper waters are, in general, less sensitive to space availabil-
Usually, the simulations for operational conditions are for
ity, noise restriction, visual pollution, and regulatory problems.
checking functionality, serviceability, and fatigue consideration
They are also exposed to much stronger and steadier wind fields
and are not targeted for ultimate loads to design structural compo-
in order to be more effective.
nents [10]. In the present study, the maximum operational condi-
It is now generally accepted that in deeper (>50 m) offshore
tion is defined as the most severe environmental condition, for
areas, floating-type wind farms are more economical than fixed
which normal operation is still permitted, while the survival con-
ones [2–6]. Possible disadvantages of the floating type wind farms
dition means that the environmental condition is the most severe,
include more sophisticated blade controls and larger inertia load-
so that operation is stopped and the blades are either parked or in
ings on the nacelle. They are also directly exposed to the open
an idle condition with the blade angle of minimal thrust. Depend-
ocean without any natural protection, thus they may have to
ing on the differences in the two site-specific conditions, some
endure harsher environments.
parts of the FOWT may experience a bigger dynamic loading not
in the survival condition but in the maximum operational condi-
tion. This kind of possibility will be investigated in this paper for
Contributed by the Ocean, Offshore, and Arctic Engineering Division of ASME
for publication in the JOURNAL OF OFFSHORE MECHANICS AND ARCTIC ENGINEERING.
a selected set of systems and environments.
Manuscript received July 31, 2012; final manuscript received May 8, 2013; The present analysis integrates rotor dynamics and control, aero-
published online March 24, 2014. Assoc. Editor: Krish Thiagarajan. dynamics, tower elasticity, floater dynamics, and mooring-line

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 dynamics to investigate the full dynamic coupling among them in
the time domain. For the dynamics and control of the blade, tur-
bine, and tower, the primary design code of wind turbines, FAST,
developed by National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), is
employed [11]. A similar integration was also attempted by Jonk-
man [11] and Karimirad and Moan [10]. The portion of the FAST
algorithm is modified to include additional features of the floater-
mooring coupled dynamic analysis program, CHARM3D
[12–15], so that the full coupling of the rotor and floater with
mooring can accurately be achieved [16,17]. The CHARM3D pro-
gram has been verified through numerous comparisons against
experiments and field data during the past decade.
Numerical Analysis of 5 MW Floating Offshore Wind
Turbine in the Time Domain
The time domain analysis tool for the rotor-floater-mooring
fully coupled dynamic system is developed in this study and eval-
uated for the floating offshore wind turbine system. In order to
couple the rotor/nacelle/tower dynamics and mooring/floater dy-
namics, two different analysis modules, FAST and CHARM3D,
are combined and utilized. The hydrodynamic coefficients, includ-
ing the added mass, radiation damping, wave forces, and mean
drift forces of the floater are obtained by a 3D diffraction/radiation
preprocessor, WAMIT, in the frequency domain [18] and the in-
formation is transferred to the time-domain-analysis tool,
CHARM3D. The mooring dynamics coupled with hull motions
are solved at each time step by a generalized-coordinate-based fi-
nite element method program using high-order elements [19].
The equation of motion in the time domain can be expressed as
follows:
½M þ Ma ð1Þn€ þ Kn ¼ FI ðtÞ þ Fc ðt; nÞ
_ þ Fn ðt; nÞ
_ þ Fm ðtÞ (1)
where Ma ð1Þ denotes the added mass at an infinite frequency,
FI ðtÞ is the wave exciting force, K is the hydrostatic coefficients,
_ is the nonlinear drag force from Morison’s equation,
Fn ðt; nÞ
_ is the radiation-damping
Fm ðtÞ is the mooring force, and Fc ðt; nÞ
force as follows:
ðt
_ ¼
Fc ðt; nÞ _
Rðt  sÞnðsÞds (2)
1
where n, n,_ and n€ represent the six degree of freedom displace-
ments, velocities, and accelerations of the floating body. The re-
tardation function R(t) is given by
ð
2 1
RðtÞ ¼ bðxÞ cosðxtÞdx (3)
p 0
in which b is the linear radiation damping matrix.
The complete nonlinear aero-elastic equation of motion for the
wind turbine model is
q þ f ðq; q;
Mðq; u; tÞ€ _ u; ud ; tÞ ¼ 0 (4)
where M is the mass matrix, f is the forcing function, u and ud are
the set of wind turbine control inputs and wind inputs, respec-
_ and q€ are the vectors of the wind turbine motions,
tively, q, q,
velocities, and accelerations, and t the is time.
The wind turbine dynamics mounted on the 6-DOF platform
are computed by FAST, which was developed by the NREL. In
parallel with that, CHARM3D calculates all of the external forces
acting on the platform. At each time step, CHARM3D feeds the
external forces to FAST, then FAST fills out the forcing function
in Eq. (4) using force inputs from CHARM3D. The external
forces, which are derived by CHARM3D, include the 1st-order
and 2nd-order (if applicable) wave forces, wave radiation damp-
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ing force, nonlinear viscous drag force from Morison members,
and the mooring-induced restoring force. The mooring restoring
force can be estimated by the top tension of each mooring line
and its directional cosine. Then FAST solves the equations of
motions of all of the degrees of freedom. Those updated platform
kinematic data, which include the displacement and velocity, are
then used in the CHARM3D side to update the external forces,
which will be fed again into FAST for the next time step. In this
coupling process, the time steps between the FAST and
CHARM3D are not necessarily the same. For the present simula-
tion, the time step of the CHARM3D-side is 0.05 s and the inter-
nal time step for the FAST-side is 0.0125 s, which means that at
every time interval of CHARM3D, the FAST internally calculates
four steps and return the resultant data to CHARM3D. The results
were checked against the case with 0.0125 s on both sides.
The basic concept of the rotor-floater coupling is schematically
shown in Fig. 1.
The control system of the 5 MW wind turbine consists of the
variable-speed and variable-blade-pitch-to-feather controller. The
two control strategies work together to produce quality power out-
puts and keep the whole system in good condition. The control
strategy of the land-based turbine is applicable to tension leg
platform (TLP)-type offshore wind turbines without any signifi-
cant modification. However, for spar platforms, it is necessary to
change the control strategy in order to ensure stability (small
floater motions) and smooth power generation [20,21].
Numerical Model for 5 MW Hywind Spar
The adopted model of the 5 MW turbine is the NREL offshore
5 MW baseline wind turbine which has been adopted as the refer-
ence model for the integrated European UpWind research pro-
gram. The Hywind floating platform in this paper is the “OC3-
Hywind” spar-buoy type platform, which is slightly different from
the actual turbine used by Statoil of Norway. The detailed specifi-
cations of the 5 MW turbine and the Hywind spar hull are sum-
marized in Tables 1 and 2. The characteristics of the mooring
system are tabulated in Table 3.
The Hywind spar is moored by three catenary lines. To increase
the yaw stiffness of the platform, the lines are attached to the hull
via a d connection. This d-connection effect is included in the
time domain simulation by adding the corresponding yaw spring
stiffness.
Each mooring line is modeled by 20 cubic-order finite elements
and its unstretched length is 902.2 m. Illustrations of the mooring
line arrangement are shown in Fig. 2. The convergence of the
Fig. 1 Basic concept of the CHARM3D-FAST hybrid model
Table 1 Specifications of the 5 MW turbine
Item Unit Value
Hub height m 90.0
Rotor diameter m 126.0
Tower diameter (top) m 3.87
Tower diameter (bottom) m 6.50
Elevation to tower base above the sea water level (SWL) m 10
Elevation to tower top above the SWL m 87.6
Overall tower mass kg 249,718
Turbine mass (tower þ tower top) kg 599,718
Center of mass (CM) location of tower above the SWL m 43.4
Tower structural damping ratio % 1
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 Table 2 Specification of the Hywind spar platform

Item Unit Value

Depth to platform base below the SWL m 120.0

Elevation to platform top above the SWL m 10
Depth to top of taper below the SWL m 4
Depth to bottom of taper below the SWL m 12
Platform diameter above taper m 6.5
Platform diameter below taper m 9.4
Platform mass, including ballast kg 7,466,330
CM location below the SWL along platform centerline m 89.9155
Platform roll inertia about the CM kg m2 4,229,230,000
Platform pitch inertia about the CM kg m2 4,229,230,000
Platform yaw inertia about the platform centerline kg m2 164,230,000

Table 3 Specification of the Hywind spar mooring system based 3D diffraction/radiation panel program [18]. Figure 4 shows
the discretized panel distribution of the floater. The submerged
Item Unit Value body has two planes of symmetry and each quadrant has 3900
panels. Second-order mean drift forces are also calculated so that
Number of mooring lines ea 3 it can generate slowly-varying drift forces and motions through
Angle between adjacent lines deg 120 Newman’s approximation method. The viscous drag force of the
Depth to anchors below SWL (water depth) m 320 hull is included by employing two Morison members for the upper
Depth to fairleads below the SWL m 70.0
Radius to anchors from the platform centerline m 853.87
and lower sections. The drag coefficient CD is taken to be 0.6,
Radius to fairleads from the platform centerline m 5.2 which is typical for a cylinder at high Reynolds numbers. The vis-
Unstretched mooring line length m 902.2 cous loadings on the Morison members are calculated at the
Mooring line diameter m 0.09 body’s instantaneous position up to the instantaneous free surface
Equivalent mooring line mass density kg/m 77.7066 at each time step. The wave particle kinematics above the MWL
Equivalent mooring line weight in water N/m 698.094 are generated by using a uniform extrapolation technique.
Equivalent mooring line extensional stiffness N 384,243,000 The nonlinear viscous drag forces also contribute to the
Additional yaw spring stiffness Nm/rad 98,340,000 nonlinear slowly varying motions. The time-series generation of
the input wave field and the corresponding first-order wave-fre-
quency and second-order slowly varying wave forces and spar
motions is based on the two-term Volterra-series expansion [22].
mooring-line dynamics with more cubic elements was also For the design of offshore floating platforms, 3 h simulations are
checked. usually required for the survival condition. However, in the case
The flexibility of tower is included by using a linear modal of the FOWT design, a 1 h simulation length is usually
representation, as suggested in FAST. As shown in Fig. 3, two recommended.
fore-aft and two side-to-side mode shapes of the tower and two flap- The natural frequencies of the Hywind spar platform are tabu-
wise modes and one edgewise mode of the blades are used for the lated in Table 5. It can be seen that all of the natural frequencies
coupled dynamic analysis. The natural frequencies of those elastic are located below the lowest wave frequency of appreciable
modes are tabulated in Table 4. The tower base is located at the energy, except for the yaw mode. However, the yaw motions will
10 m height from the mean water level (MWL), which means the be small anyway due to the minimal wave-induced yaw moments
flexibility of the tower begins from that height. The hull below that on the vertical-cylinder hull.
point was assumed to be rigid. The rated power is 5 MW and the
rotor diameter is 126 m. In this study, the coupled dynamic responses
Maximum Operation and Survival Conditions
of the floating wind turbine in two key environments, the maximum
operational condition and survival condition, are presented. In this study, the fully coupled rotor-floater-mooring dynamics
of the Hywind spar turbine is analyzed in two different environ-
mental conditions: maximum operational condition and survival
Hydrodynamic Coefficients in the Frequency Domain condition. The former means the operational condition at the max-
The wave forces and hydrodynamic coefficients for the sub- imum wind speed, i.e., the cut-out (maximum operational) wind
merged portion of the hull are calculated by using the potential- speed (25 m/s) at the hub height. The time-varying wind speed at

Fig. 2 Mooring-line arrangement

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 Fig. 3 Normalized mode shapes of (a) tower fore-aft, (b) tower side-to-side, and (c) blades

Table 4 Natural frequencies of the tower and blade Table 5 Natural frequencies of the platform motions

Mode rad/s Mode rad/s Mode rad/s

1st tower fore-aft mode 2.33 Surge 0.05 Sway 0.05

2nd tower fore-aft mode 16.22 Heave 0.20 Roll 0.22
1st tower side-to-side mode 2.31 Pitch 0.22 Yaw 0.71
2nd tower side-to-side mode 14.34
Blade 1st flapwise 4.51
Blade 2nd flapwise 12.63
Blade 1st edgewise 6.86 the hub height is generated based on the API wind spectrum rang-
ing 5 s to 3600 s. In the maximum operational condition, all parts
normally function so that electricity can be generated under the
action of control system. For this condition, the tip brake and high
speed shaft (HSS) brake are not applied during the 4000 s of simu-
lation time. On the contrary, the survival condition is the most
extreme condition for structural/system reliability. In this survival
condition, the functionality of the turbine is totally shut down and
the blade of the turbine is fully feathered to the maximum pitch
angle of 90 deg in order to minimize wind loading. Since the
whole system is shut off, the turbine does not generate electricity.
The selected survival condition is close to that of a 100-yr storm
in the Gulf of Mexico. When all of the controls, including yaw
weathervaning, are shut down during the survival condition, the
incident angle can deviate from the head direction, which is con-
sidered to be the worst-case scenario. This case, however, is not
considered here. Total time domain simulation is for 4000 s,
including an initial 400 s of ramp time. Statistics are obtained
based on the time series from 400 s to 4000 s in order to eliminate
the effect of initial transient responses.
The wind and wave for both cases are random and collinear.
Their headings are fixed at 0 deg; the collinear steady shear cur-
rents are also included in the present simulations. The applied
shear currents are piecewise linear with 1.43 m/s at 0 m and zero
at 80 m. The details of the environmental conditions are
depicted in Figs. 5 and 6 and are summarized in Table 6. If the
aerodynamic loading is to be generated in a strict manner, the
full-wind-field data inside the blade-swept area need to be used
but in the present study, only the variation of the wind velocity in
the vertical direction is considered, assuming that the sideways
variation can be neglected.
For the simulation of the maximum operational condition, both
blade-pitch control and variable-speed-torque control are adopted.
Fig. 4 Discretized panel model of the spar hull As stated earlier, some modifications of the conventional control

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 Fig. 17 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the heave motion

Fig. 18 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the roll motion

Fig. 19 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the pitch motion

Fig. 20 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the yaw motion

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 Fig. 8 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the rotor speed

Fig. 9 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the surge wave loading

Fig. 10 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the pitch wave loading

mean drift force and moment. The total wave-frequency loadings
in the surge and pitch directions are depicted in Figs. 9 and 10.
Since the wave loading is directly proportional to the wave ampli-
tude, it is seen that the wave loading in the survival condition is
appreciably greater than that of the maximum operational
condition.
In severe environmental conditions, the wind loading on the
tower and the hull above the MWL should also be considered. In
this regard, the same random wind velocity with adjusted height is
applied at the center of each section. This additional tower wind
loading is also applied to the forcing function in Eq. (4). In Figs.
11 and 12, the tower (the exposed portion above the MWL other
than the blades) and blade wind loadings in the time and fre-
quency domain are compared and their details are tabulated in
Table 7. The blade wind loading is obtained from the rotor thrust
force on the turbine. The general trend of wind force on the tower
is similar to that of the input wind spectrum. However, in the case
of aerodynamic loading from the blade, significant contributions
come from the wave frequencies instead of low frequencies. Two
factors contribute in this case. Relative velocities, including the
hull motion effects, are used in the aerodynamic loading calcula-
tion of the blades and the blade pitch angles are continuously
affected by the rotational motions of the hull. Those effects can be
further clarified when we compare the results with those of the
fixed-tower case, as shown in Figs. 13 and 14. In Fig. 12, the
mean and maximum blade wind loadings are significantly greater
in the maximum operational condition than in the survival condi-
tion although the wind velocity is only half of the survival case.
This is why both conditions need to be checked in the design.
In the case of the blade wind loading of the land-based turbine,
we cannot see any peak near wave frequencies. Instead, the wind
loading is flat and widely spread in the maximum operational con-
dition, including the effects of blade rotation. However, in the sur-
vival condition, the blade wind loading of the fixed tower is
maintained to be close to zero since there is no rotational motion
of the tower other than the elastic modes.

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 Fig. 11 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the tower wind loading
Fig. 12 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the blade wind loading (rotor thrust)
The platform 6-DOF responses in both environmental condi-
tions are presented in Figs. 15–20. The wind loadings on the
blades and the wave loadings on the wetted hull are the key fac-
tors of the 6-DOF motion results. The motion results are for the
coordinate origin at the mean water level.
The fore-aft and side-to-side shear force and bending moment
of the tower base are also checked and plotted in Figs. 21–23.
In most cases, the responses in the survival condition are more
severe than those in the maximum operational condition. For
example, the mean and maximum surge offsets of the platform in
the maximum operational condition are 22.4 m and 26.1 m, while
those of the survival condition are 25.4 m and 36.5 m. The maxi-
mum pitch angle is 5.2 deg in the maximum operational condition
and 7.8 deg in the survival condition, while the mean values are
almost the same. The differences are the largest in the heave
motions. The maximum heave displacement is 0.72 m in the maxi-
mum operational condition and 7.49 m in the survival condition.
The significantly increased heave motion in the survival condition
is expected to greatly affect the mooring dynamic tension. In the
case of sway and roll, the mean displacements of the maximum
operational condition are relatively larger than those of the sur-
vival condition. This is mainly due to the asymmetric torque at
the blades induced by the wind loading and rotation. The gyro-
Table 7 Tower/blade wind loading
Item Unit Value
2
Tower projected area above the MWL m 462.4
Drag coefficient … 0.6
Centroid height from the MWL m 40.3
Mean tower wind load in maximum condition kN 87.8
Mean tower wind load in survival condition kN 353.2
Mean blade wind load in maximum condition kN 435.2
Mean blade wind load in survival condition kN 215.4
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scopic effect can also be observed in the yaw responses. The rota-
tional motion of the rotor combined with the platform pitch
motion will induce the yaw moment, thus the mean yaw angle in
the maximum operational condition is 0.81 deg, which is greater
than that in the survival condition. However, the instantaneous
maxima of all six modes in the survival condition are still much
larger than those for the maximum operational condition. In the
frequency domain, conspicuous resonances can be seen in the 6-
DOF motions in the survival condition due to larger excitations
near the natural frequencies without any dynamic coupling with
the nonrotating blades. However, in the maximum operational
condition, those resonances are much less noticeable due to much
smaller wind and wave excitations. Further investigation reveals
that significant aero damping also exists near those resonance fre-
quencies when the blades are fully operating [23] and thus the res-
onance peaks are greatly reduced in the maximum operational
condition. As for the standard deviation of the motions, the sur-
vival case shows much higher values, as shown in Table 8. This
means that the structure in the survival condition may also be
exposed to appreciable accumulated fatigue damage with a high
level of stress. The 6-DOF motions directly cause the inertia and
gravity loading on the tall structures and thus affect the shear
force and bending moment at the tower base.
The differences in hull motions between the maximum opera-
tional and survival conditions directly affect the top-tension statis-
tics of the mooring lines, which is summarized in Table 9. The
mooring-line arrangement is depicted in Fig. 24. The upwind-side
lines, such as line nos. 2 and 3 become taut and have higher ten-
sions, as can be seen in Figs. 25–27 and the downwind-side line
no.1 becomes slack and the corresponding tension is smaller. Due
to much larger heave motions and greater surge slow-drift motions
in the survival condition, the maximum top tensions are increased
by 43.5–47.8% compared to those of the maximum operational
condition. In the survival condition, the standard deviations of the
upwind-side top tensions become 2–3 times greater compared to the
maximum operational condition. The increase of the wave-frequency
MAY 2014, Vol. 136 / 020902-7
 Fig. 13 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the shaft thrust in maximum operational condition

Fig. 14 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the shaft thrust in survival condition

Fig. 15 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the surge motion

Fig. 16 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the sway motion

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 Fig. 17 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the heave motion

Fig. 18 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the roll motion

Fig. 19 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the pitch motion

Fig. 20 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the yaw motion

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 Fig. 21 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the tower fore-aft shear force

Fig. 22 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the tower side-to-side shear force

Fig. 23 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the tower fore-aft bending moment

Table 8 Floater-motion statistics (M: maximum, S: survival) dynamic tension at the taut-side lines is much larger than that of
the slack-side lines.
Maximum Minimum Mean SD The tower-top acceleration at the nacelle is one of the most im-
portant design considerations for the FOWT because it contains
1 1 1
Surge (m) M 2.61  10 1.92  10 2.24  10 1.12  10 many sophisticated devices such as the shaft, gear box, bearing,
S 3.65  101 1.52  101 2.54  101 3.09  10
Sway (m) M 2.70  101 8.30  101 5.02  101 8.84  102
S 1.52  10 2.68  10 2.18  101 5.24  101 Table 9 Top-tension statistics (M: maximum, S: survival)
Heave (m) M 7.16  101 1.41  10 4.99  101 3.06  101
Maximum Minimum Mean SD
S 7.49  10 6.57  10 1.48  101 2.11  10
1 2 1 2 2 2 2
Roll (deg) M 3.88  10 5.49  10 2.16  10 5.38  10 Line 1 (kN) M 6.39  10 5.65  10 6.03  10 1.16  101
S 1.76  10 8.87  101 1.07  101 3.14  101 S 6.53  102 4.90  102 5.72  102 2.47  101
Pitch (deg) M 5.19  10 1.38  10 3.19  10 5.82  101 Line 2 (kN) M 1.50  103 1.22  103 1.34  103 4.60 101
S 7.81  10 8.13  101 3.29  10 1.34  10 S 2.22  103 9.88  102 1.44  103 1.30  102
Yaw (deg) M 2.88  102 2.20  10 8.13  101 3.15  101 Line 3 (kN) M 1.47  103 1.20  103 1.32  103 4.24  101
S 4.44  10 3.03  10 2.72  101 6.85  101 S 2.12  103 9.67  102 1.43  103 1.24  102

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Fig. 24 Top view of the mooring-line arrangement
and generator. The origin of the tower-top acceleration is, in gen-
eral, twofold. The dominant contribution comes from platform
surge and pitch accelerations. The other factor is the one from the
tower elasticity. In Fig. 28, the tower-top accelerations for both
the maximum operational and survival conditions are presented.
The instantaneous maximum acceleration of the tower top in the
survival condition is 0.32 g, while that of the maximum opera-
tional condition is 0.18 g.
Finally, the structural loading on the blade root location is also
investigated in this study. Since the configuration of the blades
attached to the rotor hub is similar to the cantilever beam, the
highest shear force and bending moment are expected at the
blade-root location. Based on the elastic blade configurations, two
representative shear forces, -flapwise and edgewise,-at the root
location as shown in Fig. 29 are calculated and plotted in Figs. 30
and 31 for both conditions.
In Fig. 30, the mean flapwise shear force in the maximum
operational condition is much greater than that of the survival
condition, which is mainly due to blade rotation and higher aero-
dynamic loading, as shown in Fig. 12. In the frequency domain,
the flapwise shear force spectrum shows a high peak around
1.27 rad/s, which is associated with the rotor speed.

Fig. 25 (a) Top-tension time histories and (b) spectra of line no. 1

Fig. 26 (a) Top-tension time histories and (b) spectra of line no. 2

Fig. 27 (a) Top-tension time histories and (b) spectra of line no. 3

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 Fig. 28 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the tower top acceleration

Table 10 Blade root shear force statistics (M: maximum, S:

survival)

Maximum Minimum Mean SD

Flapwise (kN) M 3.35  102 2.47  101 1.59  102 4.53  101
S 2.14  102 2.58  102 3.87  101 5.15  101
Edgewise (kN) M 1.84  102 2.02  102 3.75  10 1.11  102
S 1.26  102 2.07  101 4.40  101 2.08  101

Fig. 29 (a) Flapwise and (b) edgewise blade shear force
In the case of the edgewise direction in Fig. 31, the blade shear
force is more strongly associated with the rotation of the blade.
This shear force shows a clear peak at the blade rpm as in the flap-
wise case. Unlike the previous design parameters, the maximum
dynamic loading and the possibility of the fatigue failure of the
blade is much higher in the maximum operational condition than
those in the survival condition, although the environmental condi-
tion is much less severe. Thus, the blade design should be based

Fig. 30 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the flapwise shear force at the blade root

Fig. 31 (a) Time histories and (b) spectra of the edgewise shear force at the blade root

020902-12 / Vol. 136, MAY 2014 Transactions of the ASME

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 on the maximum operational condition, while the other designs
are for the survival condition. The statistical values of the blade-
root shear force are tabulated in Table 10.
Conclusions
In this paper, the global performance of a spar-type floating off-
shore wind turbine is studied with two different extreme environ-
mental conditions. The newly developed numerical tool can
analyze the rotor-floater-mooring fully-coupled nonlinear dynam-
ics in the time domain and was used for floater-motion, blade-
loading, tower-acceleration, and mooring-line-tension simulations
in a collinear random wind-wave-current environment. The
coupled analysis includes time-varying aerodynamic loading and
damping, tower-blade elastic deformation, blade-control-induced
loading, and the gyroscopic effect of the rotating blade in analyz-
ing the global dynamics of the whole system.
In the case of the example spar, it is seen that the 6-DOF of
platform responses, tower-top accelerations, tower-base shear
forces and bending moments, and mooring line tensions in the sur-
vival condition are relatively greater than those of the maximum
operational condition. On the contrary, the blade-root shear force
and bending moment in the maximum operational condition are
much greater than those of the survival condition because of
larger wind loading and the blade rotation with gyro effects in the
maximum operational condition. Thus, the design environments
for different structural components of the FOWT can be different.
The present methodology is directly applicable to any types of
new offshore floating wind farms in the future.
Acknowledgment
This study is financially supported by the U.S. Department of
Energy, American Bureau of Shipping (USA), POSCO, and the
STX Institute of Technology (Korea). Their support is gratefully
acknowledged.
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