Investigation of the effects of the platform motion on the aerodynamics of a floating offshore wind turbine

Along with the flourishing of the wind energy industry, floating offshore wind turbines have aroused much interest among the academia as well as enterprises. In this paper, the effects of the supporting platform motion on the aerodynamics of a wind turbine are studied using the open source CFD framework OpenFOAM where the platform motion responses, including surge, heave and pitch, are superimposed onto the rotation of the wind turbine. Thrust and torque on the wind turbine are compared and analysed for cases under different platform motion patterns, together with the flow field. It is shown that the movement of the supporting platform can have large influences on a floating offshore wind turbine and need be considered during the design process.