Significance of Ice Impact on Structural Integrity of a Monopile Offshore Wind Turbine in The Great Lakes

This study demonstrates the importance of ice impact on the structural integrity of an offshore wind turbine in cold climates. The 5 MW wind turbine design, developed by National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), was used to represent the offshore wind turbine, and the Lake Erie environment was used to characterize the ice loads. The wind turbine is placed on a monopile support in a water depth of 15 m. A modified version of FAST, the tool developed by NREL for modeling and analysis of wind turbine dynamics, was used. The authors extended FAST modeling capability to enable ice impact modeling and validated this feature using MSC ADAMS software. This study presents and compares the responses of the turbine for different load cases according to the IEC standard and load conditions for a specific location in Lake Erie. It is demonstrated that ice loads are a significant factor in design.