Modelo Numérico de uma Fundação Mono-Estaca para uma Turbina Eólica Offshore

Miguel Francisco Cantinho Viana

Key information

Authors:

Miguel Francisco Cantinho Viana (Miguel Francisco Cantinho Viana)

Supervisors:

Mário Alberto Silveira Costa Vieira; Luís Filipe Galrão dos Reis (Luís Filipe Galrão dos Reis)

Published in

06/15/2018

Abstract

Offshore wind energy is a renewable source with strong prospects of development, allowing both the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the achievement of energy independence. Nowadays, floating wind solutions are under development, since they are suited for bigger depths. However, fixed-bottom foundations are the most used by farm operators, namely the monopile foundation, due to its low production and installation costs, when compared with more costly platforms, such as jacket or tripod foundations. In this work, a monopile foundation for offshore wind power in the Portuguese coast is studied for its structural integrity. Thereby, an appropriate numerical model for the structural analysis of the foundation and tower was developed. FAST 8, an aero-hydro-servo-elastic numerical code that can compute aerodynamic and hydrodynamic loads on a running wind turbine, was used to obtain the loads applied on the structure. These loads are pre-processed before their input on a finite element model, developed using ANSYS 16 software. The grout connection, which connects the monopile to the transition piece through friction, is modeled under a changing-status nonlinearity condition. To model the soil-pile interaction, the p-y model was used, by means of the ANSYS APDL commands. Static and transient structural analyses allow the study of the structure’s suitability for use in offshore environments. Different soil interactions are modeled, and their results are compared in the transient and modal analysis.