Structural Assessment of Operational Offshore Wind Turbines for Improved Reliability Design Methods

The wind industry and Ramboll benefit from improved design methods leading to safer and less costly offshore wind farms. This research project demonstrates how to exploit operational experience in the format of measurement data to optimize both the design and the operation of future and existing offshore wind farms. The project’s main objective is to develop a theoretical framework for including live/historical measurement data in the design and operation of offshore wind farms to bring enhanced certainty compared to the traditionally used deterministic approach. For that purpose, the reliability-based approaches existing for the relevant industries such as bridges or Oil & Gas are adopted for offshore wind specific needs, e.g. cost-based decision making, predictive maintenance. A combination of accurate structural models and measurements is utilized to quantify uncertainties from the complex interaction between a turbine and a foundation, which is unique for this field. As a short-term result decision rationales for wind farm operators are created to optimize their maintenance strategies, while the research in the long-term perspective can provide input for challenging existing safety factors and design standard regulations by use of acquired measurement data leading to more reliable and economically sustainable structures.The project is supported by innovationsfonden