Analysis of the Fatigue Damage on the Offshore Wind Turbines Exposed to Wind and Wave Loads Within the Typhoon Area

For the design of offshore wind turbines exposed to wind and wave loads, the method of combining the wind load and the wave load is significantly important to properly calculate the maximum stresses and deflections of the towers and the foundations1) . Similarly, for the analysis of the fatigue damage critical to the structural life, the influences of combined wind and wave loads have not been clearly verified. In this paper fatigue damage at the time of typhoon passing is analyzed using actually recorded data, though intrinsically long-term data more than 10years should be used to properly evaluate the fatigue damage. This paper concludes that the fatigue damage of the tower caused by the wave load is not substantial and, thus, the fatigue damage by the combined wind and wave load is only 2–3% larger than the simple addition of the independent fatigue damages by the wind and the wave loads. The fatigue damage of the tower top, which is required to reduce the diameter in order to minimize the aerodynamic confliction with blades, is larger than that of the tower bottom. The fatigue damage at the foundation by the combined wind and wave load is 25% larger than the simple addition of the wind and wave damages, as the foundation is directly exposed to the wave load. For the foundation, the proper structural section can be designed in order to improve the structural performance against fatigue.Copyright © 2004 by ASME