A Novel Structural Configuration of Modular Floating Wind Farms With Self-Adaptive Property

Abstract

The present work proposes a novel structural configuration for floating wind farms after an investigation into the structural configurations of current floating wind farms. The uniqueness of the structural configuration lies in the ability to adjust its heading to wind inflow directions, i.e., the self-adaptive property. To verify the existence of the self-adaptive property, a structural design is performed, and a quasi-static framework to analyze the responses is established. To simplify the loads on wind turbines under yawed inflow conditions, empirical expressions for wind loads are proposed, based on which the quasi-static analysis is performed under the yawed inflow direction of 90 deg from the structural heading. The analytical result indicates that under yawed inflow conditions, the structural heading will eventually turn to align with the wind inflow direction on account of the structural configuration and the wind turbine control. Then, the effects of inflow wind velocity, initial offset, number of wind turbines, complex environmental conditions, and hydroelastic properties on the responses of the structure are investigated.