Elastic responses of wind-tracing floating offshore wind turbines

This study is concerned with the motion analysis and structural responses of a multi-unit floating offshore wind turbine to combined wave and wind loads. Three wind turbines are placed on an equilateral triangular platform. A single-point mooring system is used to allow the structure to rotate in response to the environmental loads. Hydrodynamic and aerodynamic loads are determined by use of the linear diffraction theory and the blade element momentum method, respectively and the elastic response of the entire structure is determined by use of a finite element analysis. The responses of the fully flexible structure to co-directional and misaligned wind and wave loads are studied