Extreme wind and wave loads on the next generation of offshore wind turbines

Completed

Renewable Energy Sources(Wind Energy)

Basic and strategic applied research

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Civil Engineering)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering)
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES (Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences)

Not Cross-cutting

Dr T Adcock
Engineering Science
University of Oxford

Standard

EPSRC

03 July 2017

02 January 2021

42 months

£797,824

Energy

South East

Energy : Energy

Dr T Adcock, Engineering Science, University of Oxford

Professor AGL Borthwick, Sch of Engineering and Electronics, University of Edinburgh
Dr R McAdam, Engineering Science, University of Oxford
Dr RHJ Willden, Engineering Science, University of Oxford
Dr T van den Bremer, Sch of Engineering and Electronics, University of Edinburgh

Project Contact, Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology, China
Project Contact, University of Western Australia
Project Contact, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China
Project Contact, Ocean Wave Engineering

In many areas around the world dominant load on offshore wind turbines is from environmental forces. One example of this is in China where typhoons can do considerable damage to offshore installations. This project builds up from fundamental modelling of the underlying environment and how offshore wind turbines interact with this, to analyzing the structural response and design scenarios.The project will have four themes: The first stage examines the wave environment in areas of moderate depth and complex bathymetry with wind input. The second and third stages of the project will analyse loads from wind and waves on offshore wind structures. The fourth stage will examine the associated structural and geotechnical design. An ongoing theme throughout the project will be directed towards outreach, networking and dissemination. The project will improve our understanding of the underlying physical processes as well as exploring the design and environmental implications. In particular, the first theme will provide a better fundamental understanding of typhoon-wave interactions, an important topic in its own right in ocean environmental science.The project will use a wide-range of techniques to tackle the particular problems. These range from analytical modelling of the underlying equations, numerical modelling, physical modelling, and analysis of field data. Insight from all these approaches will be pooled to tackle the challenge of designing offshore wind turbines in harsh maritime environments.

08/01/18