Happy modelling choices
Ocean excitation is a combination of random excitations from different depths:
In the case we do not receive any “loading data” from MIT one can instead model it as a stochastic
process
f (t) at
desired
level of
detail.
Here are
some eg.
PSDs
S f ( ω ) from the literature.
Mechanistic procedure
The PSD’s can be inverse FFT’d to get auto-correlation fns R(t ) in time-domain.
∞
R f ( t )= ∫ S f ( ω ) e
− jωt
dt
−∞
From R f (t) we can extract ensembles of time-varying ocean wave excitations f i ( t ) ,i=1 , … , nr where
nr is the number of load realisations.
The wind-turbine structure is modelled as
M ẍ i (t) + C ẋ i ( t ) + K x i ( t )=f i ( t ) , ∀ i=1 , … nr (1)
where M, C and K are the mass, damping and stiffness matrices of the structure (assembled from FE);
T
and [ x i ( t ) , ẋ (t ) ] is the structural response to ocean wave f i ( t ) .
Individual trajectories are not very useful or meaningful in random excitation cases. Rather, it is more
2 2
interesting to obtain response statistics ¿ x (t ) >,< ẋ ( t )> , σ x ( t )∧σ ẋ ( t )
∑ xi (t )
Mean : E ( x ( t ) ) ≡< x ( t ) >≡ x ( t )= i (2)
nr
2 2 2
Variance :σ x (t )=¿ x ( t ) >−¿ x ( t ) ¿
Similar definitions follow for ẋ (t). A naïve-way to to get these indicators would be a frequentist
Monte-Carlo approach we brute force solutions to about 10,000 realisations and manually
compute statistics. This is the failsafe backup option to fall back on if all else fails. Very expensive and
non-sexy. But hopefully a commercial solver (ABAQUS, Comsol, OpenFAST) can help with the first
part. Not so sure about the second.
Some sneaky assumptions
We can be more clever though. Provided we make some simplifying assumptions about (1)
i) M, C and K are frequency independent.
2
ii) Eq. (1) is linear in x i (t); i.e., no crazy terms like [ x i ( t ) ) please.
then, using (1) and (2) and doing some algebra, we get a stochastic form of (1), i.e., a stochastic ODE,
a SODE
M < ẍ (t)>¿ + C< ẋ ( t ) >+ K < x ( t ) >¿< f (t )> , ∀ i=1 , … nr (4)
Turns out most of our ocean-excitations are variations of zero-mean Gaussian random processes, so
¿ f ( t ) >¿ 0; making our life very easy. But this is not a hard requirement. We can now solve (4) directly
for ¿ x (t ) >¿ using our favourite ODE solver.
Steady-state shortcuts
But, if we care only about the stationary/steady-state response; then the transient evolution of
¿ x (t ) >¿ ,σ 2x (t ) etc. are not interesting. We can exploit FFT and move to ω−¿domain, and get almost
instantaneous results. Doing a Fourier transform on (4), we get
[−ω 2 M + jωC+ K ] < ^x ( ω ) >¿< f^ ( ω ) >¿
A more friendly form
−1
¿ ^x ( ω ) >¿ [−ω 2 M + jωC+ K ] < f^ ( ω ) >≡ H (ω)< f^ ( ω ) >¿ (5)
−1
where H ( ω )=[ −ω 2 M + jω C+ K ] is the frequency response function (FRF) of the structure. This
is very useful for steady-response analysis. For eg. response stationary PSD S x (ω)
+¿ Sf ( ω ) H ( ω ) ¿
S x ( ω )=H ( ω )
We can also use Eq. (0) to get R x (t) .
One can also IFFT H (ω) to get the structures impulse response function h(t). Getting individual
trajectories x i (t) now becomes a simple matter of convolving with wave-load f i ( t )
t
x i ( t )=∫ h ( t−τ ) f i ( τ ) d τ
0
Things to worry about
1. If sneaky assumption # ii) fails. We can still do statistical linearisation and move forward
iteratively.
2. If sneaky assumption # i) fails – it is a little worrying for time-domain studies. We have to
go for advanced techniques like fractional calculus or some extended state-space
representations. Not a good idea for this problem I think
3. All these signal processing tricks notoriously non-scalable. I,.e. they work beautifully for 1
or 2 DoF systems; but get real expensive real fast with more complex structrures. Hopefully
a commercial solver can help with this.
Some references
1. Memos, C., Tzanis, K. and Zographou, K., 2002. Stochastic description of sea waves. Journal
of Hydraulic Research, 40(3), pp.265-274.
2. Yildirim, B. and Karniadakis, G.E., 2015. Stochastic simulations of ocean waves: An
uncertainty quantification study. Ocean Modelling, 86, pp.15-35.
3. Smit, P.B., 2014. Deterministic and stochastic modelling of ocean surface waves.
4. Ochi, M.K., 1998. Ocean waves: the stochastic approach. Oceanographic Literature
Review, 6(45), p.904.
