Validation of a FAST Model of the SWAY Prototype Floating Wind Turbine

Research output: NRELTechnical Report

Abstract

As part of a collaboration of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and SWAY AS, NREL installed scientific wind, wave, and motion measurement equipment on the spar-type 1/6.5th-scale prototype SWAY floating offshore wind system. The equipment enhanced SWAY's data collection and allowed SWAY to verify the concept and NREL to validate a FAST model of the SWAY design in an open-water condition. Nanyang Technological University (NTU), in collaboration with NREL, assisted with the validation. This final report gives an overview of the SWAY prototype and NREL and NTU's efforts to validate a model of the system. The report provides a summary of the different software tools used in the study, the modeling strategies, and the development of a FAST model of the SWAY prototype wind turbine, including justification of the modeling assumptions. Because of uncertainty in system parameters and modeling assumptions due to the complexity of the design, several system properties were tuned to better represent the system and improve the accuracy of the simulations. Calibration was performed using data from a static equilibrium test and free-decay tests.
Original languageAmerican English
Number of pages64
DOIs
StatePublished - 2016

NREL Publication Number

  • NREL/TP-5000-61744

Keywords

  • calibration
  • FAST
  • floating offshore
  • NREL
  • offshore wind
  • simulations
  • SWAY prototype
  • validation

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