CHALLENGE JOURNAL OF STRUCTURAL MECHANICS 1 (4) (2015) 198–201

Seismic analysis of offshore wind turbine

including fluid-structure-soil interaction

Kemal Hacıefendioğlu *, Fahri Birinci

Department of Civil Engineering, Ondokuz Mayıs University, 55139 Samsun, Turkey

ABSTRACT ARTICLE INFO

This paper presents the seismic response analysis of offshore wind turbines sub- Article history:
jected to multi-support seismic excitation by using a three dimensional numerical Received 15 May 2015
finite element model considering viscous boundaries. The sea water-offshore wind Accepted 21 July 2015
turbine-soil interaction system is modeled by the Lagrangian (displacement-based)
Keywords:
fluid and solid-quadrilateral-isoparametric finite elements. The research conducts a Offshore wind turbine
parametric study to estimate the effects of different foundation soil types on the seis- Ice sheet
mic behavior of the offshore wind turbine coupled interaction system. The results Fluid-structure interaction
obtained for different cases are compared with each other.
Seismic analysis
Lagrangian approach

1. Introduction combined wind and earthquake loading of a wind tur-

bine given a definition of the external conditions for an
In recent years, because of spending too much energy appropriate series of load cases. Maißer and Zhao (2006)
in the world, it needs additional energy. Therefore, the investigated the dynamic responses of wind turbine tow-
wind turbine industry has developed rapidly for sustain- ers to seismic excitations in time domain, considering
able energy production. In most regions of the world, soil structure interaction. The soil structure interaction
wind turbines are built on the active earthquake zone. was represented by a frequency-independent discrete
Therefore, in order to adequately design, operate, and parameter model approximately. The governing motion
maintain wind turbines, in particular, for sites with high equations were derived by the application of Lagrange
peak ground acceleration, it seems necessary to take into formalism including Lagrange multipliers.
account earthquakes. The current research investigates the effects of differ-
Seismic analysis of wind turbine subjected to earth- ent soil properties on the stochastic response of offshore
quake ground motion has been studied and published by wind turbine for random seismic excitation. All the nu-
only a limited number of researchers. Bazeos et al. merical analyses are performed using computer pro-
(2002) presented the load bearing capacity and the seis- gram ANSYS (2003).
mic behavior of a prototype steel tower for a 450 kW
wind turbine with a horizontal power transmission axle.
The structure was analyzed for static and seismic loads 2. Lagrange Approach for Fluid Systems
representing the effects of gravity, the operational and
survival aerodynamic conditions, and possible site-de- The formulation of the fluid system is presented ac-
pendent seismic motions by using the finite element cording to the Lagrangian approach (Wilson and Khal-
method. vati, 1983). In this approach, fluid is assumed to be line-
Witcher (2005) used an alternative approach to un- arly elastic and irrotational. Also, the fluid is assumed to
dertake the calculation of seismic response of wind tur- be non-flowing and inviscid (that is, viscosity causes no
bine during earthquake ground motion by using the com- dissipative effects). For this fluid, the relation between
puter software. The software can be used to compute the pressure and volumetric strain is given by

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +90-362-3121919 ; E-mail address: [email protected] (K. Hacıefendioğlu)

ISSN: 2149-8024 / DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.20528/cjsmec.2015.07.027
 Hacıefendioğlu and Birinci / Challenge Journal of Structural Mechanics 1 (4) (2015) 198–201 199

𝑃 𝐶11 0 0 0 𝜀𝑣 where 𝐻 is a matrix consisting of interpolation functions

𝑃𝑥 𝐶22 0 0 𝑊𝑥
{𝑃 } = [ 0
of the fluid element.
] 𝑥 {𝑊 } ,
𝑦 0 0 𝐶33 0 𝑦
(1) If Eqs. (2), (4) and (6) are substituted into Lagrange’s
𝑃𝑧 0 0 0 𝐶44 𝑊𝑧 equations, the equation of motion of the fluid system can
be obtained as follows,
where P, C11 and εv are the pressures which are equal to
mean stresses, the bulk modulus and volumetric strains 𝑀𝑓 𝑢̈ 𝑓 + 𝐾𝑓∗ 𝑢𝑓 = 𝑅𝑓 , (8)
of fluid, respectively. In Eq. (1), Px, Py, Pz are the rotational
stresses; C22, C33, C44 are the constraint parameters and where 𝐾𝑓∗ , 𝑢̈ 𝑓 , and 𝑅𝑓 are system stiffness matrix includ-
wx, wy and wz are the rotations about the Cartesian axis x, ing the free surface stiffness, nodal acceleration vector
y and z, respectively. and nodal force vector, respectively (Bathe, 1996).
In this study, the equations of motion of the fluid sys-
tem are obtained using energy principles. Using the fi-
nite element approximation, the total strain energy of 3. Stochastic Formulation
the fluid system may be written as,
Since the formulation of the stochastic dynamic anal-
1
𝜋 = 𝑢𝑓𝑇 𝐾𝑓 𝑢𝑓 , (2) ysis of structural systems has been well known for many
2
years, only the final equations will be given in this study.
where Kf and uf are the stiffness matrix and the nodal Detailed formulations for stochastic dynamic analysis
displacement vector of fluid system, respectively. Kf is are given in references (Lin, 1967; Yang, 1986; Manolis
derived by summing stiffness matrices of the fluid ele- and Koliopoulas, 2001). One of the most important fac-
ments as follows: tors in stochastic analysis is the power spectral density
function. If the power spectral density function of input
process is known, the power spectral density function of
𝐾𝑓 = ∑ 𝐾𝑓𝑒 , 𝐾𝑓𝑒 = ∫𝑣 𝐵𝑓𝑒𝑇 𝐶𝑓 𝐵𝑓𝑒 𝑑𝑉 𝑒 , (3) output process can be determined easily. Filtered white
noise model is generally used as power spectral density
where Cf is elasticity matrix consisting of diagonal terms function for the modeling of ground motion simulation.
in Eq. (1). 𝐵𝑓𝑒 is strain-displacement matrix of the fluid Cross power spectral density function can be deter-
element. mined by using the equation of motion of the system un-
An important behavior of fluid systems is the ability der the ground motion as;
to displace without a change in volume. The increase in
∗
the potential energy of the system due to the free surface 𝑆𝑖𝑗 (𝜔) = 𝑆𝑢̈ 𝑔 (𝜔) ∑𝑁
𝑟=1 ∑𝑠=1 𝜓𝑖𝑟 𝜓𝑗𝑠 𝐻𝑖𝑟 (𝜔)𝐻𝑗𝑠 (𝜔) ,
𝑁
(9)
motion can be written as,
where Süg(ω) represents the power spectral density
1
𝜋𝑠 = 𝑢𝑇 𝑆 𝑢 , (4) function of ground motion, ω represents the frequency,
2 𝑠𝑓 𝑓 𝑠𝑓
H(ω) represents the frequency response function, N is
where usf and Sf are vertical nodal displacement vector the number of modes which are considered to contribute
and stiffness matrix of the free surface of the fluid sys- to the response, 𝜓𝑖𝑟 is the contribution of the rth mode
tem, respectively. to uj(t) displacement and * denotes the complex conju-
gate. For i=j, Eq. (9) gives the power spectral density
𝑇
function of the ith displacement.
𝑆𝑓 = ∑ 𝑆𝑓𝑒 , 𝑆𝑓𝑒 = 𝜌𝑓 𝑔 ∫𝐴 ℎ𝑠 ℎ𝑠 𝑑𝐴𝑒 , (5)

where ℎ𝑠 is a vector consisting of interpolation functions 4. Ground Motion Model

of the free surface fluid element, 𝜌𝑓 and g are mass den-
sity of the fluid and acceleration due to gravity, respec- Ground motions are known to highly nonstationary in
tively. nature (both in amplitude and frequency content) and
Finally, the kinetic energy of the fluid system must be this has a huge impact on the stochastic response. Since
considered to complete the energy contributions. This the primary objective of this study is to perform a para-
energy is given by, metrical study with the ice cover effects on the response
of offshore wind turbine subjected to stochastic seismic
1 excitation, the non-stationary ground motion is not con-
𝑇 = 2 𝑢̇ 𝑓𝑇 𝑀𝑓 𝑢̇ 𝑓 , (6) sidered.
The power spectral density function of ground accel-
where 𝑀𝑓 and 𝑢̇ 𝑓 are the mass matrix and the nodal ve- eration for stationary ground motion is assumed to be of
locity vector of the fluid system, respectively (Clough the form of filtered white noise ground motion model
and Penzien, 1993). 𝑀𝑓 is also obtained by summing the originally proposed by Kanai (1957)–Tajimi (1960) and
mass matrices of the fluid elements in the following: modified by Clough and Penzien (1993),

𝑇 𝜔4𝑔 +4𝜉2𝑔 𝜔2𝑔 𝜔2 𝜔4

̅ 𝑑𝑉 𝑒 ,
𝑀𝑓 = ∑ 𝑀𝑓𝑒 , 𝑀𝑓𝑒 = 𝜌𝑓 ∫𝑉 𝐻 𝐻 (7) 𝑆𝑢̈ 𝑔 (𝜔) = 𝑆0 ( 2 )∙( 2 ) , (10)
(𝜔𝑔 −𝜔2 ) +4𝜉2𝑔 𝜔2𝑔 𝜔2
4 (𝜔4𝑓 −𝜔2 ) +4𝜉2𝑓 𝜔2𝑓 𝜔2
200 Hacıefendioğlu and Birinci / Challenge Journal of Structural Mechanics 1 (4) (2015) 198–201

where, ωg and ξg are the resonant frequency and and irrotational. The soil media is represented by solid
damping ratio of the first filter; ωf and ξf are those of the elements; the wind tower and sea water are represented
second filter; and S0 is the spectrum of the white-noise by shell and fluid elements in the finite element model,
bedrock acceleration. respectively. While SHELL63 element is used to model
Power spectral density function of the Kocaeli the wind turbine, soil media is modeled using SOLID45
earthquake for firm soil type is shown in Fig. 1. The elements; FLUID80 element is used to model the sea wa-
calculated intensity parameter value for firm soil type is, ter media. At the sea water-wind turbine and sea water-
S0(firm)=0.00103 m2/s3. Filter parameter values ( ωg, ξg, soil, the length of the coupling element is chosen as 0.001
ωf, ξf ) proposed by Der Kiureghian and Nevenhofer m. The main objective of the couplings is to hold equal
(1991) are utilized as ωg=15.0 rad/s, ξg=0.6, ωf=1.5 the displacements between two reciprocal nodes. In this
rad/s, and ξf=0.6. study, viscous boundary method developed by Lysmer
and Kuhlemeyer (1969) is considered in three dimen-
sions. These viscous boundaries can be used with the fi-
Density Function (m²/s³)

nite element mesh as shown in Fig. 3.

Acceleration Spectral

0.010
0.007
0.005
0.003
0.000
0 10 20 30 40 50
Frequency (rad/s)
Fig. 1. Power spectral density function for the Kocaeli
earthquake.

5. Application

The offshore wind turbine, water in the sea and soil

was assumed to behave linear elastic, isotropic and ho-
mogeneous. Therefore, a non-linear phenomenon such
as water cavitation was not included in the study. To
evaluate the stochastic response of the coupled system,
the material properties of the wind turbine body, sea wa-
ter and soil media used in the analyses are given in Table
1. In addition, the average thicknesses of the wind tur-
bine are shown in Fig. 2. The mass of the nacelle was
taken into account as 130,000 kg.

Table 1. Material properties of considered coupled system.

Elasticity Mass per Fig. 2. Main dimensions of the offshore wind turbine.
Poisson’s
Material Modulus unit Vol.
Ratio
(kN/m2) (kg/m3)

Turbine 2.06x107 0.30 7800

Soil type (S1) 2.00x106 0.30 2000
Soil type (S2) 3.00x105 0.35 1900
Soil type (S3) 5.00x104 0.40 1800
Sea water 2.07x106 - 1000

In this research, the stochastic responses of the fluid-

structure-soil interaction system of the offshore wind
turbine are estimated by using a three dimensional finite
element model based on Lagrangian approach (Fig. 3). In
the Lagrangian approach, displacements are selected as
the variables in both fluid and structure domains
(Calayır et al., 1996; Olson et al., 1983). The formulation
of the fluid system is presented according to the Lagran-
gian approach (Wilson and Khalvati, 1983). In this ap- Fig. 3. Finite element model of the sea water-wind tur-
proach, fluid is assumed to be linearly elastic, inviscid bine-soil interaction system for different soil conditions.
 Hacıefendioğlu and Birinci / Challenge Journal of Structural Mechanics 1 (4) (2015) 198–201 201

6. Results 7. Conclusions

The effects of the foundation soil properties on the This study investigates the stochastic response of an off-
stochastic response of the offshore wind turbine are il- shore wind turbine under the random seismic excitation.
lustrated in Figs. 4-5 by using three soil types (Table 1). The parametric analyses were carried out by considering
In this section, all the support site conditions have firm the structure-sea water-soil interaction. The results for
soil (FF). For this purpose, the displacement power spec- the coupled interaction finite element system have been
tral density (PSD) values for these soil types, at point A, modeled by using the computer software called ANSYS.
depending on the frequency ranging from 0.0 to 1.4 Hz, The stochastic response of the offshore wind turbine
is shown in Fig. 4. It is concluded from the figure that the including the structure-sea water-soil interaction during
displacement values increase as the soil gets softer. The random seismic excitation is considerably affected by
same comments can be made for the one standard devi- the different foundation soil properties. The results
ation (1σ) of the Von Misses stress responses (N/m2) due show that the values of the stochastic response of the
to the different soil types on the offshore wind turbine as coupled system increases as soil gets softer.
illustrated in Fig. 5. The maximum stresses for S1 and S3
soil types occur in the same regions on the offshore wind
turbine. Whereas the maximum stress values due to S2 REFERENCES
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