STUDY ON MULTI-USE OF AN INTEGRATED OFFSHORE WIND TURBINE FOUNDATION AND COASTAL CAGE NET

The objective of this study is to investigate the suitable method for the integration of coastal cage net and the offshore wind farm as scour protection. Physical model tests with the scale of 1:36 are carried out in the Near-shore Wave Basin (NSWB) at Tainan Hydraulics Laboratory (THL) with the jacket type foundation and the combination of coastal cage net in the test area. The location in water depth 16m of the foundation is simulated in this study. From the fixed-bed experimental results, it shows that the up-current optimum location of coastal cage net in front of jacket type foundation can have a good effect to reduce current speed under the condition of distance between cage net and foundation being 2 times foundation width (W). However, the up-wave location of coastal cage net in front of jacket foundation, the wave attenuation effect near wind turbine foundation is not so obvious. From the fixed-bed experimental results, the optimum cage net depth is up to 0.75 water depth (3/4h, 12m cage net depth in-situ) for reducing current speed. After the fixed-bed experimental tests, the mobile experimental study on soft scour protection for the jacket type foundation of offshore wind turbine is further conducted.