Long-term fatigue damage sensitivity to wave directionality in extra-large monopile foundations. (February 2018) - Horn, Jan-Tore
The fatigue damage sensitivity to wave directionality on large-diameter monopile foundations for use in the offshore wind turbine industry is investigated. A frequency-domain approach with the Dirlik method is used to estimate fatigue damage and to evaluate the effect of wave spreading and swell separation compared to a total sea representation. To evaluate the long-term impact, 30 years of hindcast data from the Dogger Bank area are used. Furthermore, a computationally efficient time-domain model of a 10-MW offshore wind turbine is used to compare with the frequency-domain results. Results show that benefits in terms of structural fatigue can be obtained with directional considerations.