Applied Ocean Research 130 (2023) 103416

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Applied Ocean Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/apor

Combined effects of aerodynamic and second-order hydrodynamic loads for

floating wind turbines at different water depths
Wei Shi a, *, Lixian Zhang a, Madjid Karimirad b, Constantine Michailides c, Zhiyu Jiang d, Xin Li e
a
DeepWater Engineering Research Center, Dalian University of Technology, China
b
Civil Engineering, School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University Belfast, UK
c
Civil Engineering Department, International Hellenic University, Greece
d
Department of Engineering Sciences, University of Agder, Norway
e
Faculty of Infrastructure Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In this paper, fully coupled time-domain analysis of three different semisubmersible floating offshore wind
Coupled analysis turbines (semi-FOWTs) is performed. The focus of the present paper is to investigate the impact of second-order
Aerodynamic load wave hydrodynamic loads combined with aerodynamic loads on the dynamic responses of semi-FOWTs under
Hydrodynamic load
normal and extreme sea conditions. Three water depths (50, 100, and 200 m) are considered for examining the
Semisubmersible floating offshore wind
depth effect. The simulation results show that the second-order hydrodynamic loads play an important role in the
turbines
motion and structural responses under extreme sea conditions irrespective of the inclusion of the aerodynamic
loads in the analysis. Meanwhile, the aerodynamic loads significantly affect the dynamic responses of all semi-
FOWTs under normal operational conditions. Among the three semi-FOWTs, the V-shaped semi-FOWT has the
largest pitch motion responses under extreme sea conditions. Compared to the normal operation condition, the
water depth has a larger impact on the motion and force responses of the three examined platforms under
extreme sea condition. The surge and pitch motions decrease with water depth increases. The tower base loads
tend to be lower for deep water depth, while the mooring line tensions are opposite. This findings could benefit
the offshore wind turbine industries.

1. Introduction bottom-fixed foundations are not applicable considering the high con­
struction costs and structural instability in deep water areas (Karimirad
Due to fossil fuel consumption and environmental pollution, and Michailides, 2015). Floating Offshore Wind Turbine (FOWT) plat­
renewable energy has developed rapidly all over the world. Offshore forms are considered a good solution to exploit the enormous wind
wind has attracted large interest in academia and industry, as well. energy over the deep oceans (Wu et al., 2019). Taking into account the
According to GWEC (2021), the installed capacity at the end of 2020 of stabilizing method, the possible concepts of FOWTs are mainly divided
offshore wind energy units reached 30 GW, which is 14 times the rele­ into four types: semisubmersible-type FOWT (Cao et al., 2021; Wang
vant 2010 value. To achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, the Chinese et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2020a), TLP-type FOWT (Ren et al., 2022; Wu
government (Cheshmehzangi and Chen, 2021) devotes itself to devel­ et al., 2021), spar-type FOWT (Antonutti et al., 2014; Zhang et al.,
oping a sustainable and green economy depending on renewable energy. 2022), and barge-type FOWT (Borisade et al., 2016; Olondriz et al.,
China will have the largest cumulative installation of offshore wind 2018). Among those FOWTs concepts, the semi-FOWT is considered the
energy units, predicted to contribute 51% of the world’s 6.1 GW of most effective design (Liu et al., 2016). It relies on the distribution of
offshore wind power in 2021. water surface area, platform draft and ballast to maintain stability (Peng
Bottom-fixed foundations, such as monopile (Page et al., 2018; Ren et al., 2021). In addition, the semi-FOWTs can be efficiently used in a
et al., 2021; Suja-Thauvin et al., 2017), jacket (Kim and Lee, 2015; Saha wide range of water depths, ranging from moderate to deep water
et al., 2014), and gravity-based (Van Wijngaarden et al., 2018), are used depths (Cao et al., 2020). Good examples are the China’s first floating
for developing offshore wind energy units in shallow water. The demonstration project that was deployed at the Yangxi Shapa at 30 m

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (W. Shi).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apor.2022.103416
Received 28 January 2022; Received in revised form 23 August 2022; Accepted 15 November 2022
Available online 23 November 2022
0141-1187/© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
W. Shi et al. Applied Ocean Research 130 (2023) 103416

the FOWT in shallow water depths (approximately 50 m).

The present paper aims to investigate the combined effects of aero­
dynamic loads and second-order hydrodynamic loads on the dynamic
response of three semi-FOWTs (Fig. 1), including the Vsemi, Bsemi, and
Osemi at three different water depths. The present research tries to fill
pertinent research gaps by addressing the following questions:

• When dealing with second-order hydrodynamic loads, is it necessary

to consider the coupling effect between the second-order hydrody­
namic loads and aerodynamic loads?
• What are the effects of the aerodynamic loads and hydrodynamic
loads on the dynamic performance of semi-FOWTs?
• Are the effects the same when dealing with different design config­
urations and water depths of semi-FOWTs concepts?

Fig. 1. Concepts of three semi-FOWTs. In this paper, the mooring systems of the three semi-FOWTs at
different water depths are designed to achieve a similar mooring per­
water depth using a semi-FOWT (China Three Gorges, 2021), the 50 MW formance. The numerical simulation was performed in OpenFAST
Kincardine project that uses WindFloat® semi at 62 m water depth (Jonkman and Buhl, 2005). A comparison of the effects of different
(Ramirez et al., 2020) and the Fukushima Forward project in Japan that hydrodynamic models obtained from ANSYS/AQWA (ANSYS, 2016),
uses the V-shaped semisubmersible FOWT (Ohta et al., 2013). including the first-order hydrodynamics and second-order hydrody­
Since the engineering applications of FOWTs are still in the primary namics, on the dynamic response of three FOWTs is investigated. The
stage, numerical approaches are widely utilized to better understand the aerodynamic impacts on the three examined semi-FOWTs under normal
behavior and response of FOWTs. Hu et al. (2016) investigated the dy­ and extreme conditions are investigated and discussed herein. The ef­
namic responses of the OC4-DeepCwind semi-FOWT (Osemi) during fects of variation of the platforms combined with the different examined
normal operation and emergency shutdown conditions. The results water depths on the motion and force responses are also discussed.
indicated that the pitch natural frequency decreases due to the aero­ This paper is organized as follows: The methodology used and de­
dynamic effects. Strong dynamic responses of the structural loads were scriptions of the present numerical simulation are given in Section 2;
found during the emergency shutdown conditions. Luan et al. (2016) Section 3 gives the results and discussions of the three examined semi-
designed the Braceless semi-FOWT (Bsemi) and showed that the design FOWTs at three different water depths under wind and wave action;
has rational rigid-body motions in extreme environmental conditions. the conclusions of the study are given in Section 4.
Karimirad and Michailides (2016) investigated the dynamic responses of
the V-shaped semi-FOWT (Vsemi) under misaligned wind-wave condi­ 2. Method and model description
tions. Results show that the misaligned wave and wind loads didn’t
affect the responses of Vsemi under normal operating conditions. Li 2.1. Theoretical background
(2021) investigated the hydrodynamic coupling of the OC4-DeepCwind
semi-FOWT with an offshore support vessel and observed the apparent 2.1.1. Hydrodynamic theory
‘splitting’ phenomenon in the responses. Ferri et al. (2022) tried to For the hydrodynamic calculation of large floating structures moving
minimize the motion responses of 10 MW semi-FOWTs by proposing an in the water, the potential flow (PF) theory can be used. The PF theory
optimization procedure. The results show that the proposed method can assumes the fluid to be irrotational, inviscid and incompressible. The
find the optimum configuration in terms of motions and platform di­ first-order hydrodynamic F(1) and second-order hydrodynamic loads can
mensions decreasing for scaling up the 5 MW geometry. be described with the following equation:
The second-order hydrodynamic effects have a great impact on the
F (1) = FI + FD + FR (1)
response of semi-FOWTs (Chuang et al., 2020; Li et al., 2014; Pham and
Shin, 2020) when decreasing the water depth. Zhao et al., al.(2020)
F (2) = Fmean
(2) (2)
+ FDiff (2)
+ FSum (2)
made a comparison between the 5 MW FOWT and 10 MW FOWT
considering the second-order hydrodynamic effects. Xu et al. (2018)
where FI represents the incident wave force; FD is the diffraction force;
used two methods, including Newman’s approximation and the full
FR is the radiation force; Fmean represents the mean drift force; FDiff and
(2) (2)
Quadratic Transfer Function (QTF) method, to assess the importance of
second-order wave loads on the Bsemi in the time-domain analysis FSum are the diff-frequency and sum-frequency hydrodynamic loads,
(2)

under extreme sea conditions using the Simo-Reflex-Aerodyn (SRA) respectively.

code. Gueydon et al. (2014) investigated the second-order hydrody­ Normally, when calculating the second-order hydrodynamics, the
namic effects of Osemi by using FAST and aNySIM. The results showed full quadratic transfer function (QTF) and Newman’s approximation
that the sum-frequency loads didn’t affect the motions of Osemi signif­ method can be used. The full QTF method involves the calculation of
icantly. Coulling et al. (2013) demonstrates the importance of the second-order velocity potential and thus needs a larger calculation time.
diff-frequency part of the second-order wave hydrodynamic responses of Newman’s approximation method can be used to calculate the second-
Osemi. The numerical results include the linear and second-order hy­ order wave hydrodynamics using the first-order results thus improving
drodynamic loads which are compared with experimental results. computational efficiency. The comparison of QTF- matrix between these
Zhang et al. (2020b) used ANSYS/AQWA to perform the time-domain two methods are displayed in Appendix A. Compared to the diff-
simulation of three semi-FOWTs to investigate the water depth effects. frequency part, the sum-frequency hydrodynamic load does not affect
The wave-only conditions including moderate and extreme sea condi­ the dynamic responses of semi-FOWT as shown in Gueydon et al. (2014).
tions are considered in the analysis. However, such effects are not clear
under the combined aerodynamic and second-order hydrodynamic load 2.1.2. Aerodynamic theory
contributions. Considering the abundant wind energy resources and The blade element momentum (BEM) theory was often used to
development status of FOWTs, it is meaningful to study the feasibility of obtain the aerodynamic loads on the wind turbine system. The blade can

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W. Shi et al. Applied Ocean Research 130 (2023) 103416

For every blade element, the applied aerodynamic load dT and dM are
calculated with the following equation:
√̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅̅
V0 = (1 − a)2 V 2 + (1 + a′ )(Ωr)2 (3)

V0 (1 − a)2
dT = 0.5ρ c(CL cosφ + CD sinφ)dr
sin2 φ
(4)
V0 (1 − a)Ωr(1 + a)
dM = 0.5ρ c(CL sinφ − CD cosφ)rdr
sinφcosφ

Fig. 2. Sketch of a blade element. where ρ is the air density, c is the chord length, CL and CD are the lift
coefficient and drag coefficient of each airfoil, respectively. More details
of aerodynamic theory can be found in Jonkman et al. (2015).
Table 1
Properties of NREL 5 MW offshore wind turbine.
Parameter Value 2.2. Description of the FOWT systems
Rated power/MW 5
Nacelle mass/ton 240
2.2.1. Description of the three examined semi-FOWTs
Drivetrain High Speed, Multiple-Stage Gearbox
Rotor mass/ton 110 The Vsemi, Bsemi, and Osemi are used in this paper to support the
Hub height/m 90 NREL 5 MW offshore wind turbine as shown in Table 1. More details of
Rotor diameter/m 126 the NREL 5 MW offshore wind turbine can be found in Ref. Jonkman
Tower base height/m 10 et al. (2009).
The three floating platforms represent variations of semi-FOWT de­
signs. Large diameter columns of the Osemi were used to reduce the
Table 2 center of gravity and the heave motion responses. Besides, the Osemi
Parameters of three semisubmersible floating platforms. uses braces to connect the center and side columns. The pontoons at the
Parameter Vsemi Bsemi Osemi bottom are used for Bsemi to connect the center column to the side
Draft/m 28 30 20 columns. Different from the other two FOWTs, Vsemi is asymmetrical.
Displaced volume/m3 10,013 10,517 13,917 Table 2 depicts the main geometry of the three examined semi-FOWTs.
floater steel mass/kg 1.63e6 1.68e6 3.85e6
More details of the three semi-FOWTs can be found in Karimirad and
Center of gravity (x, y, z) /m, m, (− 30.6,0, (0,0, (0,0,
m − 16) − 18.9) − 9.89) Michailides (2015), Luan et al. (2016) and Robertson et al. (2014).
Moment of inertia Ixx/kg*m2 5.12E9 4.72E9 6.82E9
Moment of inertia Iyy/kg*m2 3.89E9 4.72E9 6.82E9 2.2.2. Description of the numerical model
Moment of inertia Izz/kg*m2 7.79E9 8.24E9 1.23E10
The panel models of the three semi-FOWTs are developed in ANSYS/
AQWA (ANSYS, 2016). Frequency-domain hydrodynamic analysis,
be divided into several independent blade elements. Fig. 2 shows a including the first- and second-order hydrodynamics of the three
sketch of an independent blade, where Ω is the rotor speed, a and a are
′ semi-FOWTs, was performed in the module of frequency-domain ana­
the axial and tangential induction factors, α is the angle of attack, β is the lysis-AQWA/Line. Both the full QTF and Newman’s approximation
angle of twist, ϕ is the angle of inflow, r is the radius of the blade method were used in the present paper. Only the wave-induced motions
element, vx0 and vy0 are the component of the relative wind speed, V0 . are considered for the calculation of the second-order wave hydrody­
namics. After a convergence study, the panel numbers of the three

Fig. 3. Illustration of the simulation architecture in AQWA-OpenFAST.

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W. Shi et al. Applied Ocean Research 130 (2023) 103416

Fig. 4. Configuration of the mooring system for the three semi-FOWTs.

Table 3
Parameters of the mooring system for three semi-FOWTs.
Parameter Vsemi Bsemi Osemi
Water depth/m 50 100 200 50 100 200 50 100 200
Mooring line length/m 560 656 700.0 560 640 700 560 630 700
Mass per unit length/kg/m 648 117 117 648 117 117 648 117 117
Mooring line diameter/m 0.180 0.138 0.138 0.180 0.138 0.138 0.180 0.138 0.138
Axial stiffness/kN 2.9E6 3E6 3E6 2.9E6 3E6 3E6 2.9E6 3E6 3E6
Anchor radius/m 549.3 640.0 670.0 589.0 665.4 708.8 585.0 654.3 706.4
Clump mass weight/ton 75 50 – 75 40 – 75 45 –
Pretension /kN 1110 1190 1240 1100 1160 1170 1160 1180 1180

meshes for the Vsemi, Bsemi and Osemi platforms are 14,735, 11,691, achieve a similar natural frequency in surge motion and pretension of
and 23,562, respectively. After frequency-domain analysis of the three the mooring line at different depths. The mooring systems of the three
semi-FOWTs, the first- and second-order hydrodynamic coefficients are semi-FOWTs for the same water depths are designed with similar
transferred into the OpenFAST input format via MATLAB code. mooring line properties and lengths. The lumped mass method (Hall and
In this paper, the drag term of the Morison equation was used to Goupee, 2015) is used to calculate the responses of the mooring system.
include the viscous effect that the PF theory cannot account for. Ac­ The mooring system configurations of the three semi-FOWTs are shown
cording to the Germanischer Lloyd standard (Lloyd and Hamburg, in Fig. 4. Table 3 gives the detailed properties of the mooring systems for
2005), the drag coefficient Cd of the cylinder column is set to 0.7, and different water depths.
that of the rectangle pontoon is set equal to 2.0 for the three Fig. 5 presents the restoring force in surge and mooring line tension
semi-FOWTs. The applied aerodynamic loads were calculated using the with offsets at 0◦ and 60◦ The results show that the mooring systems for
BEM theory. A sketch of the coupled analysis of this paper is shown in different water depths of the three semi-FOWTs result in similar
Fig. 3. restoring forces in the surge. Besides, the mooring line tension with
offset in 0◦ for different semi-FOWTs shows that the mooring line pre­
2.2.3. . Description of the mooring system tension for each semi-FOWT at different water depths is similar. The
The mooring systems of the three semi-FOWTs are designed for mooring line tension will linearly increase until the floating platform
different water depths. The objective of the mooring system design is to obtains a large offset which will result in a nonlinear behavior. The

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W. Shi et al. Applied Ocean Research 130 (2023) 103416

Fig. 5. Restoring force and mooring line tension performance for different semi-FOWTs.

Table 4
Definition of load cases.
Load cases Hs /m Tp /s Uw /(m /s) TurbulenceIntensity Note
LC 1+(Wind – – 14.8 0.12 Operated
only)
LC 1*(Wave 4.5 11.81 – – Parked
only)
LC 1(Coupled 4.5 11.81 14.8 0.12 Operated
wind and
wave)
LC 2+(Wind – – 37.4 0.10 Parked Fig. 6. Statistics of tower base-Fx and mooring line tensions with use of
only) different hydrodynamic models.
LC 2*(Wave 9.5 17.28 – – Parked
only)
LC 2 (Coupled 9.5 17.28 37.4 0.10 Parked
wind and
wave)

Table 5
Natural periods of three semi-FOWTs in different DoFs.
Mode/ Vsemi (50 m/100 m/ Bsemi (50 m/100 m/ Osemi (50 m/100 m/
(s) 200 m) 200 m) 200 m)
Surge 77.5/83.7/81.6 86.1/86.1/91.1 87.3/91.1/91.1
Heave 20.4/20.8/20.8 25.2/25.5/25.3 17.0/17.0/17.3 Fig. 7. Statistics of pitch motion with different hydrodynamic models.
Pitch 19.6/19.7/19.9 36.9/36.9/36.9 25.0/25.0/25.6

Table 6
Description of different hydrodynamic models.
Model Model description Note
M1 First-order force only First-order
solution
M2 First-order wave force + mean drift force Second-order
solution
M3 First-order wave force + mean drift force + diff- Second-order
frequency wave force (Newman’s approximation solution
method)
M4 First-order wave force + mean drift force + diff- Second-order
frequency wave force (QTF method) solution Fig. 8. Statistics of forces for wind only, wave only, and coupled wind-wave
cases at 50 m water depth.

mooring line tension and restoring force will increase nonlinearly when
Xu (2020), the breaking loads of the chain with a diameter of 0.180 m
the offset for 0◦ is larger than 8 m. For the case of 60◦ offset, the restoring
force in the surge is lower compared to the case of 0◦ offset. and spiral rope with a diameter of 0.138 m are 26,278 kN and 17,140
kN, respectively. Therefore, the safety factor of the chain and spiral rope
At shallow water depth, the maximum mooring line tension for the
semi-FOWTs is around 4000 kN. For deep water depth (200 m), the are 6.5 and 2.15, respectively, and is smaller than the value recom­
maximum mooring line tension is 8000 kN for the Osemi. According to mended by the DNV standard (1.67). Therefore, the mooring system is

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W. Shi et al. Applied Ocean Research 130 (2023) 103416

load cases have been defined. In the present paper, one of the main
targets is to compare the dynamic response of the semi-FOWTs at
different water depths. The JONSWAP spectrum is used for modeling
irregular waves; the peak enhancement factor that is used equals 3.3.
Table 4 shows the examined load cases. The total simulation time for
each examined case is 4600 s, with the first 1000s excluded from the
post-processing of the results to ignore transient effects.

3.2. . Natural periods of the three semi-FOWTs

Table 5 presents the natural frequencies of the three semi-FOWTs in

different motions. Compared to the Vsemi and Bsemi-FOWTs, the
Osemi-FOWT has the lowest heave natural period, mainly due to the
larger waterplane area. The pitch natural periods of Bsemi at different
water depths are higher than those of the other two FOWTs.
Fig. 9. Statistics of motions for wind only, wave only and coupled wind-wave
cases at a water depth of 50 m. 3.3. . Second-order hydrodynamic effects on dynamic responses

suitable for the semi-FOWTs as designed. The dynamic responses of Osemi at 50 m water depth under the
combined wind and waves, including the normal operational and
3. Results and discussions extreme sea conditions, are investigated and presented herein. Four
different hydrodynamic models have been used as presented in Table 6.
3.1. Definition of load cases Fig. 6 presents the statistical results of the tower base-Fx and
mooring line tensions considering different hydrodynamic models. It
Based on the sea conditions in Guangdong Province, China, several should be noted that the vertical bar represents the maximum value, and

Fig. 10. PSD of force responses for wind only, wave only, and coupled wind-wave cases of Osemi at 50 m water depth.

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W. Shi et al. Applied Ocean Research 130 (2023) 103416

Fig. 11. PSD of motion responses for wind only, wave only and coupled wind-wave cases of Osemi at 50 m water depth.

the solid points are the STD values of the variables. For normal opera­ 3.4. Aerodynamic load effects on dynamic responses
tional conditions (LC 1), the tower base-Fx and mooring line tension are
mainly affected by wind thrust loads. The tower base-Fx and mooring In this section, the dynamic responses of Osemi at 50 m water depth,
line tension are mainly wave-induced due to the low aerodynamic load including wind-only, and wave-only cases are compared (Table 4). Fig. 8
for a parked wind turbine (LC 2). According to Fonseca et al. (2008) and shows the statistics of rotor thrust, tower base-Fx and mooring line
Pessoa et al. (2010), the water depth affects the calculation of tensions. The wave-induced rotor thrust and tower base-Fx are smaller
second-order velocity potential, thus affecting the calculation of for both the maximum and STD values compared to LC 1+. For instance,
second-order wave force. Therefore, an accurate estimation of the STD values of the rotor thrust and tower base-Fx under the wave-
second-order wave hydrodynamic is needed for shallow water depths. only case (LC 1*) are only 24% and 69%, respectively, compared to
For LC 2, a large discrepancy can be identified for tower base-Fx and those under the coupled wind-wave case (LC 1). It can be also observed
mooring line tension when using the different hydrodynamic models. As that the maximum and STD results under the coupled wind-wave con­
observed, the STD values of the tower base-Fx and mooring line tension dition are smaller compared to the sum of responses for the wave-only
for M4 are respectively 1.14 and 1.24 times the results of the first-order and wind-only cases. The possible reason is that the tower top motion
solution (M1). will be changed under the combined wind and wave condition,
The maximum and STD values of platform pitch motion are dis­ compared to the wind-only case. This could affect the aerodynamic
played in Fig. 7. Generally, the motion responses are mainly affected by damping acting on the wind turbine system. Besides, the hydrodynamic
the large aerodynamic force when the wind turbine is operating. Be­ damping also can affect the dynamic responses since the rotor thrust and
sides, the wave height is small for the moderate sea condition (LC 1) tower base shear forces are related to the motion responses. Therefore,
compared to the extreme sea condition (LC 2). Therefore, the contri­ the coupled aero-hydro-dynamic damping effects have a great impact on
bution of the second-order hydrodynamics to the motion responses is not the dynamic responses. Thus, adding the loads from the wind-only and
obvious. Under the extreme sea condition (LC 2), the second-order wave wave-only cases directly is an inappropriate way to evaluate the tower
force has a great impact on the pitch motion, especially for the full QTF base loads.
method (M4). This is attributed to the pitch motion which is mainly As observed, the maximum tension of ML 1 is close to the pretension
wave-dominated for a parked wind turbine and large wave height (LC (1180 kN) as shown in Table 3 for the LC 1+and LC 1. Under normal
2). Compared to the relevant results of M1, the maximum and STD operational condition (LC 1), there is a large mean surge motion due to
values of the pitch motion for M4 case increased by 48.7% and 48.6%, the rotor thrust force. Therefore, ML1 in the downwind direction is
respectively. For the Osemi and 50 m water depth (Fig. 6), the second- slacker with smaller tension. The maximum mooring line tensions for
order hydrodynamic loads using the full QTF method should be ML 1 and ML 2 are 1218 and 1588 kN, under LC 1+, respectively. For the
included in the analysis for the extreme sea condition. wind-only case (LC 1+), the mooring system suffers large variation
compared to the wave-only case (LC 2*). For example, for the wind-only
case, the STD values for the tension of the ML 1 and ML 2 are 1.3 times
compared to those for the wave-only case. The statistical results of

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W. Shi et al. Applied Ocean Research 130 (2023) 103416

Fig. 12. Ratios of maximum forces for different semi-FOWTs with different
water depths.

mooring line tension for LC 2 show that the wave has a great contri­ Fig. 13. Statistics of motion of different semi-FOWTs with different
water depths.
bution to the dynamic responses. For example, the STD values of the ML
1 and ML 2 for LC 2 are 4.9 and 3.8 times compared to the reference
values for LC 2+. aerodynamic loads are small, while the pitch motion caused by the
The results of the motion statistics (Fig. 9) show that the aero­ hydrodynamic loads influences the rotor thrust force. The tower base-Fx
dynamic loading dominates the surge and pitch motion responses when is mainly affected by the wind-induced thrust force and floater reso­
the wind turbine is in operation (LC 1). For the wind-only case, the nance effect. Besides, the wave hydrodynamic load also contributes to
maximum surge and pitch motions of Osemi are 3.14 and 3.75 times the the tower base shear force. Due to the aerodynamic damping effects on
relevant results of the wave-only case, respectively. The results indicate the responses, the pitch natural frequency for Osemi shifts under the
that the rotor thrust force affect the maximum motion responses, while coupled wind-wave and wind-only conditions (LC 1* and LC 1). For
the variation of the motion responses is mainly affected by the wave instance, the pitch natural frequency for the Osemi shifts from 0.251 to
force. Under the coupled wind and wave sea condition (LC 2), the 0.200 rad/s. The PSD results also indicate that the coupled wind-wave
maximum surge, and pitch motions are 1.10 and 1.08 times of those for condition (LC 1) can reduce the response at the low-frequency range
wave only case (LC 2*), respectively. The heave natural frequency of compared to the wind-only load case (LC 1+). Similar to the performance
Osemi is close to the wave peak frequency for extreme sea condition. of the rotor thrust force, the tower base-Fx is found to be dominated by
Therefore, the maximum and STD values of the heave motions are quite wave-induced loads. The wind force barely affects the tower base loads
similar between the wave only and coupled wind and wave case. under severe conditions. The spectra in Fig. 10 are consistent with the
The power spectrum density (PSD) of the rotor thrust force, tower statistics in Fig. 8.
base-Fx, and mooring line tensions for Osemi is derived as shown pre­ As shown in Fig. 10, the spectra of ML 1 and ML 2 are concentrated in
sented in Figs. 10 and 11. The rotor thrust force output in Openfast in­ the low-frequency range and wave frequency region under the normal
cludes the pure aerodynamic loads applied on the wind turbine blade, operation condition (LC 1), showing that both the wind and wave
gravitational loads and inertial loads. The gravitational loads come from contribute to the mooring line tension response. The response at the low-
the rotor mass, tower deflection and platform pitch, etc. When the wind frequency region will be largely damped out when the Osemi operates
turbine is parked (LC 2), the gravitational loads and inertial loads play under LC 1 for both ML 1 and ML 2, compared to LC 1+. Under the
an important role on the rotor thrust. This is because the applied extreme sea condition (LC 2), the spectra of mooring line tension have

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W. Shi et al. Applied Ocean Research 130 (2023) 103416

Fig. 14. Spectra of rotor thrust force, tower base shear force and mooting line tensions for Bsemi at different water depths.

Fig. 15. PSD of motion responses for Bsemi with different water depths under the moderate and extreme sea conditions (LC 1 and LC 2).

large values on the surge natural frequency and wave frequency region. natural period of heave motion for Osemi is close to the wave peak
The total energy of the mooring line tension under the extreme sea frequency. Therefore, some resonance phenomena can be observed in
condition is larger than that under the normal operation. From the the response spectra of heave motion.
statistics of mooring line tension, the STD value is larger for LC 2,
showing that the mooring line tension suffers drastic variation.
As observed in Fig. 11, the surge motion is mainly wind-induced 3.5. . Water depth effects on dynamic responses of semi-FOWTs
under the normal operation condition. Compared to the wind-only
case, the surge and pitch motion responses at the low-frequency re­ The dynamic responses of the semi-FOWTs with different water
gion under the coupled wind-wave condition are greatly reduced due to depths and platforms are investigated. The water depth effects on the
the hydrodynamic damping effects. The heave motion responses are tension force and motion of the semi-FOWTs are also discussed herein.
mainly affected by the wave hydrodynamic load. Under extreme sea The maximum and STD of rotor thrust, tower base-Fx and mooring
conditions, the aerodynamic force barely affects the motion responses line tensions under moderate and extreme sea conditions for the three
due to the small rotor thrust force. It can be observed the motion spec­ semi-FOWTs at different water depths are presented in Fig. 12. As
trum are quite similar for LC 2+and LC 2. As shown in Table 5, the observed, the rotor thrust force is affected by the variation of supporting
platform and water depths under the condition LC 1. For example, the

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shows that the surge motions are quite similar for the three Semi-FOWTs
under LC 1. For example, the maximum surge motions are 8.66, 8.96,
and 9.03 m for the three Semi-FOWTs at a water depth of 50 m. This is
attributed to the mooring systems of the three FOWTs. The pitch motion
of Bsemi is larger compared to the other two platforms in the operational
condition because of the lower moment of inertia. As observed, the
maximum pitch motion responses for the Vsemi, Bsemi, and Osemi are
6.32◦ , 9.32◦ , and 4.26◦ , respectively, at shallow water depth (50 m).
For the extreme condition, in contrast, the Vsemi has the largest
pitch motion because the pitch resonance was largely excited by the
wave frequency in LC 2. As shown in Fig. 13, the maximum pitch mo­
tions are 11.01◦ , 8.76◦ , and 7.77◦ for the Vsemi from shallow water to
deep water depths. The STD values of pitch motions are 3.11◦ , 2.21◦ ,
and 2.04◦ for the Vsemi at 50 m, 100 m, and 200 m water depths,
respectively. The Osemi has the largest heave motion at a water depth of
50 m because the heave natural frequency is very close to the wave
frequency in LC 2. In contrast with the Osemi, the maximum heave
motion increases with increasing water depth for the Vsemi and Bsemi.
For instance, the maximum heave motions are 2.6 m, 4.6 m, and 5.1 m,
Fig. 16. RAO of wave excitation force for Bsemi at different water depths. respectively.
The response spectra of rotor thrust force, tower base-Fx and
maximum rotor thrust forces for Vsemi at 50 m, 100 m and 200 m are mooring line tensions of Bsemi at different depths are presented in
982 kN, 978 kN and 983.8 kN, respectively. However, the rotor thrust is Fig. 14. Under the normal operational condition, the PSDs of the rotor
small for the parked wind turbine (LC 2). For LC 2, Osemi obtains a thrust and tower base-Fx are similar when changing the water depth.
smaller tower base-Fx due to its lower pitch motion. Generally, the The responses of mooring line tension at the wave frequency region are
Osemi has a smaller pitch motion in both LC 1 and LC 2 compared to the larger for a water depth equal to 200 m. Under the extreme sea condi­
Vsemi and Bsemi due to its large mass and moment of inertia in pitch. tion, the water depth effects on the dynamic responses are obvious, due
The responses of tower base-Fx of the semi-FOWT are mainly affected by to the wave loads dominating the response. As observed, the rotor thrust
the surge and pitch motions, which will increase with decreasing water and tower base-Fx at the wave frequency region increase when
depth (LC 2); the tower base-Fx will decrease with increasing water decreasing the water depth.
depth. In Fig. 13, the pitch motion is larger in shallow water depth. The
As observed, the mooring line tensions of the three semi-FOWTs are large pitch motion contributes to the rotor thrust force and tower base-
similar under the normal operational condition (LC 1). Under LC 2 the Fx. However, a very little contribution from surge motion resonance is
maximum ML 1 tensions for the three semi-FOWTs at a water depth of identified for the 200 m water depth. As observed, under extreme con­
200 m are larger than the other two water depths. For LC 2, the mooring ditions, the PSD values of mooring line tensions of Bsemi close to ω =
line tension responses at shallow water depths are dominated by both 0.37 rad/s for 200 m water depth are larger compared to the same re­
surge motion resonance and wave frequency response. Due to the sponses for the two rest examined water depths. Similarly, the restoring
extreme wave condition, there is a severe surge motion. From Fig. 5(b), force values of Bsemi for 200 m water depth are larger compared to the
the mooring line tension for the 200 m water depth is much larger than rest two examined water depth, and the PSD values are larger. It should
the other two water depths with the same surge motion. This could cause be noted that although the PSD values are larger for 200 m water depth
large mooring line tensions for deep water. the mooring line tension obtains logical values that are not affecting
A comparison among the different types of Semi-FOWTs (Fig. 13) their integrity. As shown in the statistical results, the maximum mooring
line tension of Osemi for 200 m water depth is around 4800 kN, which is

Fig. A1. Nondimensional surge QTF forces.

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W. Shi et al. Applied Ocean Research 130 (2023) 103416

Fig. A2. Nondimensional heave QTF forces.

Fig. A3. Nondimensional pitch QTF forces.

still in a reasonable range compared to the maximum breaking load of shown in Fig. 16. When the water depth was decreased, the wave
the mooring system. excitation force RAO in surge and pitch motion will increase. Under the
Fig. 15 presents the motion response spectra of Bsemi at different extreme condition, the platform motions are mainly affected by the
water depths. The response amplitude operator (RAO) of the wave wave-induced load. Therefore, the surge and pitch motion responses are
excitation force (Fig. 16) for Bsemi at different water depths is drawn to larger in shallow water depth. At shallow water depth, the heave motion
expound on the water depth effects on the platform motion. For Bsemi, responses are mainly stimulated at the heave natural frequency region.
the surge motion is largely affected by the wind-induced response in the However, the contribution from the wave frequency region increases
low-frequency range under the normal operation condition. The when increasing the water depth. This phenomenon is also observed in
coupling effect between the surge and pitch motion is observed for Xu et al. (2018). As observed in Fig. 16, the wave excitation load of
Bsemi. As discussed above, the energy of wind is mainly concentrated in heave motion at shallow water depth is larger in the low-frequency re­
the low-frequency region. The response spectrum of heave is lower for gion, while that is lower in the high-frequency region. For LC 2, the wave
the Bsemi at 50 m water depth. The statistics of motion (Fig. 12) show excitation force will have a larger value on the low-frequency region at
that the Bsemi has the lowest heave motion at 50 m water depth. The shallow water depth, which can excite the heave natural frequency of
pitch motions of the Bsemi are dominated by the pitch resonance the platforms. Therefore, the energy of the heave motion response is
response and wind-induced response. transferred from the natural frequency of the platform to the wave peak
Under extreme sea condition, the water depth effects on the motion frequency when increasing the water depth. Due to the coincidence of
responses are more significant. As observed, the surge and pitch motion the heave natural frequency (0.369 rad/s) and wave frequency (0.363
responses at low frequency and wave frequency regions increase when ran/s), the heave motion of Osemi for the three water depths is only
decreasing water depths. The water depth significantly affects the dominated by the wave frequency.
calculation of wave excitation load in the low-frequency region as

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W. Shi et al. Applied Ocean Research 130 (2023) 103416

4. Conclusion Acknowledgments

In the present paper, the performance of three semi-FOWTs under This research was funded by the National Natural Science Founda­
the combined effect of wind and waves is compared and discussed. It tion of China (Grant Nos. 52071058, 51939002). This paper is also
aims to investigate the combined aerodynamic and second-order hy­ partially funded by Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Uni­
drodynamic effects on the loads and motions of three semi-FOWTs at versity (DUT20ZD219) and the Open Research Fund of Hunan Provin­
different water depths. Some conclusions are summarized as follows: cial Key Laboratory of Key Technology on Hydropower Development
(PKLHD202003).
(1) Second-order hydrodynamics have a larger impact on the dy­
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This is because the dynamic responses of semi-FOWTs are mainly
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of second-order hydrodynamics are more significant, especially
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