Hydrodynamic investigation of mooring-hinged, multi-floater offshore floating photovoltaic platform in irregular waves and wind

Abstract

The floating photovoltaic (FPV) power generation technology in water had made up for some of the shortcomings of traditional land-based photovoltaics and has developed rapidly in the past decade. In order to obtain a deeper understanding of the hydrodynamic response of offshore floating photovoltaic (OFPV) under wind and wave conditions, the article used ANSYS-AQWA for a mooring hinged multi-floater OFPV platform in waves and wind based on the potential flow theory. The comparisons of motion responses of each module between only wave action and wave & wind action were carried out to investigate the overall hydrodynamic characteristics. Unlike traditional FPV calculations, which were typically limited to hydrodynamic analysis, this paper further quantitatively evaluated the influence of wind loads on both the amplitude and frequency of structural motion responses. The results demonstrated the necessity and significance of incorporating wind load analysis in such structural assessments. At the same time, the influence of hinge damping on the motion response was also calculated here. The conclusions drawn from this study provide valuable guidance for the design and optimization of multi-floater FPV systems.