Investigation on High-Order Coupled Rigid-Flexible Multi-Body Dynamic Code for Offshore Floating Wind Turbines

This paper presents a preliminary development and validation of a high-order coupled time-domain simulation code DARwind for floating offshore wind turbine systems. In the code, unsteady Blade-Element-Momentum method with some corrections has been utilized to calculate aerodynamic loads. Combination of potential-flow theory and Morison“s equation are applied to calculate hydrodynamic loads. A quasi-static catenary mooring model is used to consider restoring forces from mooring lines. Kane“s dynamic equations and a high-order coupled model with mode superposition are proposed to model kinematics and structural dynamics of floating offshore wind turbine systems. Subsequently, the effectiveness of the code and its unique high-order coupled dynamic characteristics have been verified by code-to-code tests.