Analysis of offshore wind turbine tower under environmental loads

Researchers have started to use numerical methods in the fluid-structure interactive solutions with the advancing of computing technology. There are few studies investigating bidirectional fluid structure interaction (FSI) analysis due to requirements of high computer capacity. This insufficiency is attempted to be corrected in this study. Offshore wind turbine tower is selected to employ the method under environmental loads. To detect accuracy of the numerical analysis, the tower is modelled as a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) system. The equation of motion of the system is numerically integrated by using a fourth-order Runge-Kutta method. Time-varying lateral displacement of the tower and first natural frequency values are obtained from analysis. Afterwards, the structure and the environment are modelled in ABAQUS finite elements program. Bidirectional FSI technique is applied to the structure due to the interaction between ABAQUS/CFD-ABAQUS/Explicit. The accuracy of SDOF and bidirectional FSI analyses results is determined in the end.