Experimental Flow-Induced Motions of a FOWT Semi-Submersible Type (OC4 Phase II Floater)

Flow-induced motions (FIM) are an issue for floating offshore structures, such as multi-column platforms, as the phenomenon can decrease the fatigue life of the mooring, riser, and cable systems. The new concept of floating offshore wind turbines (FOWT) have a multi-column design that may be subjected to FIM. In the past, FIM was studied mainly for Oil & Gas platforms installed in deep waters. However, the FIM phenomenon of FOWT has been insufficiently explored. To rectify this, model tests were performed for the semisubmersible (SS) floating system design developed for the DeepCwind project (Offshore Code Comparison Collaboration Continuation (OC4) phase II). This paper will investigate the presence of FIM and show its importance in the design process of FOWT. Three different incidence angles of the current were tested, namely, 0, 90, and 180 deg. For each heading, 30 reduced velocities were tested, across the range 8000 < Re < 70,000. The results showed amplitudes in the transverse direction of around 70% of the diameter of the platform column, which is similar to those observed for deep-draft (DD) SS with circular columns. Note that these amplitude values are larger for a floater with a circular column, than for a platform with square columns. The results showed that as FIM occurred for this specific FOWT SS, its effect has to be considered in the mooring system and electric cable design.