CFD Simulation of Semi-Submersible Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Under Pitch Decay Motion

The application of a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code to simulate the response of a semi-submersible floating wind turbine under pitch decay motion was investigated in this study. Estimation of the natural period, the hydrodynamic damping and the flow characteristics were the main focus of this study. An extensive verification study of the simulation results was conducted to improve the confidence and reliability of the numerical simulation by the estimation of the numerical errors and uncertainties. The time series of pitch motion was plotted against model test data. In addition, the pitch period and hydrodynamic damping were calculated and compared to experimental data. Detailed flow characteristics as vorticity field and hydrodynamic pressure field on the floater surface were illustrated after post processing of the computational data. The results of the flow characteristics suggest that the heave damping plates were a major contributor to the hydrodynamic damping of this floater in pitch decay.