The Effect of Flexibility for the Offshore Wind Turbine System

The foundation of offshore wind energy system is generally assumed to be fixed-ended in system analysis for the convenience of calculation and, correspondingly, it might lead a conservative design. If soil-foundation interaction get involved with the analysis, the system characteristics such as natural frequency, shear force, moment and displacement are expected to differ from those of fixed-ended case. In this study, the analysis have been conducted to identify how the response of offshore wind turbine varies upon considering the foundation flexibility with soil-foundation interaction. The model taking account of the flexibility of foundation was compared with fixed-ended model at the seabed. The flexibilities of foundation were obtained by coupled spring model at the seabed and Winkler Spring Model with soil depth. As a result, the first mode of the whole system with the Winkler Spring Model was decreased relative to that with the fixed-ended model. The results showed that the effect of foundation flexibility should be considered when designing the offshore wind energy system.