State of the Art in Floating Wind Turbine Design Tools

This paper presents an overview of the simulation codes available to the offshore wind industry that are capable of performing integrated dynamic calculations for floating offshore wind turbines. It provides a description of the modelling techniques employed by each of the different codes, and analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of these methods. A review of the testing and validation activities performed for a number of the design tools is also included. Conclusions are presented about the development needs and future verification activities required for these codes.