Dynamic Analyses of Uncoupled vs Coupled Wind Turbine Foundation Structures

Learn more about using Dynamic Analyses of Uncoupled vs. Coupled Wind Turbine Foundation Structures. Read the recently published technical article from Offshore Technology Conference 2023.

Offshore wind turbines are a fast-growing segment of the offshore industry. These relatively new structures present new analysis and design challenges that have not been encountered in the offshore oil and gas industry. One challenge is the integration of the turbine forces with the environmental forces on the jacket structure. These loads cannot typically be calculated at each time step, or coupled, because of limited information provided by wind turbine manufacturers, so uncoupled approaches are normally taken.

This paper compares coupled and uncoupled dynamic analyses of representative offshore monopile and fixed-leg jacket wind turbine structures using Bentley SACS and NREL FAST, and compares their behavior. The goal is to evaluate the validity of the uncoupled analysis process. You can access the details of the technical paper via OnePetro: Comparison between Coupled and Uncoupled Dynamic Analysis of Offshore Wind Turbine Generators (WTG) Support Structures | OTC Offshore Technology Conference Learn more about SACS, Bentley’s advanced offshore structural analysis software. Thanks to Ankit Desai, Anupam Gupta, and Shashikant Sarada for their work on this paper.