COMPARISON OF SIMULATION AND TANK TEST RESULTS OF A SEMI-SUBMERSIBLE FLOATING WIND TURBINE UNDER WIND AND WAVE LOADS

A model of the Dutch Tri-floater semi-submersible platform equipped with the NREL 5MW wind turbine has been tested in the hydrodynamic and ocean engineering tank of ´Ecole Centrale Nantes under wind and wave loads. This paper aims at compar-ing the results obtained with numerical simulations with these experimental results. The numerical model is based on the FAST design code from NREL and a user defined platform load model for calculating hydrodynamic and mooring loads. This hydrody-namic model includes non linear hydrostatic and Froude-Krylov forces, diffraction/radiation forces obtained from linear potential theory and Morison forces to take into account viscous effects on the braces and heave plates. ∗Address all correspondence to this author.- Note: Work presented in this paper was done while this author was PhD candidate at LHEEA Lab. ´Ecol