Comparison of Measured and Simulated Structural Loads of an Offshore Wind Turbine at Alpha Ventus

A comparison of fatigue and extreme loads from simulations with full-scale measurements collected over a period of ten months in the offshore test field, Alpha Ventus, is presented in this paper. There are two goals of this study: (1) to check if the measured range of fatigue and extreme loads can be captured correctly by simulations when the variations of relevant environmental parameters are taken into account; and (2) to investigate if measured extreme loads can be reproduced by simulations when ten-minute averages of the environmental parameters are used. The results show a good overall match of loads when the variation of environmental parameters is considered but an insufficient match when the events of maximum load occurrence are compared.