Experimental investigation of two shared mooring configurations for a dual-spar floating offshore wind farm in irregular waves

Shared mooring brings potential cost benefits to a floating wind farm. In such a wind farm, adjacent floaters are connected by shared lines and the total number of mooring lines is reduced. This paper presents an experimental study on a dual-spar floating offshore wind farm. In the first configuration, two spars are connected by a shared line. In the second configuration, a clump weight is added to the shared line. Irregular wave tests are performed for both configurations under operational and extreme wave conditions. The platform motions of one wind turbine and the mooring tension are measured during the tests. The influence of the added clump weight is found to be insignificant in the operational wave conditions. Under extreme waves, the added clump weight results in smaller platform motions in the wave direction and reduced tension oscillations in all mooring lines. With the additional clump weight, the extreme mooring tension in the shared line can decrease by 30% and fewer snap loading events occur, but the extreme tension in single lines can increase by 6%. This study contributes to an improved understanding of shared mooring systems and facilitates the development of model test methods for floating wind farms.