J. Marine Sci. Appl.

(2012) 11: 328-334

DOI: 10.1007/s11804-012-1140-3

Motion Performance and Mooring System of

a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine
Jing Zhao*, Liang Zhang and Haitao Wu
Institute of Ocean Renewable Energy System, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China

Abstract: The development of offshore wind farms was originally carried out in shallow water areas with fixed
(seabed mounted) structures. However, countries with limited shallow water areas require innovative floating
platforms to deploy wind turbines offshore in order to harness wind energy to generate electricity in deep seas.
The performances of motion and mooring system dynamics are vital to designing a cost effective and durable
floating platform. This paper describes a numerical model to simulate dynamic behavior of a new
semi-submersible type floating offshore wind turbine (FOWT) system. The wind turbine was modeled as a wind
block with a certain thrust coefficient, and the hydrodynamics and mooring system dynamics of the platform were
calculated by SESAM software. The effect of change in environmental conditions on the dynamic response of the
system under wave and wind loading was examined. The results indicate that the semi-submersible concept has
excellent performance and SESAM could be an effective tool for floating wind turbine design and analysis.
Keywords: floating offshore wind turbine; semi-submersible platform; platform motion; mooring dynamics;
mooring system
Article ID: 1671-9433(2012)03-0328-07

1 Introduction1 WindSea semi-submersible.

Offshore wind energy is at the beginning of a period of
enormous expansion and is likely to become a significant
source of electricity in several countries. Many large
offshore wind farms have been constructed. The offshore
wind farms built to date are in shallow seas, up to about 20m
depth.
As ever deeper waters are examined, at some stage the
inherent advantages associated with floating support
structures (e.g. towing to site, compliance due to the flexible
attachment to the ground) will provide cost benefits over
fixed structures that match the additional costs due to their
complexity and novelty.
Projects have also been proposed for other seas in greater
depths, for which numerous challenges remain. These
include size of the support structures, wave loads, handling
equipment, and natural frequencies.
Over the past few years, academic interest in floating
foundations for offshore wind turbines has been extended to
industry applications, and a significant amount of funding
has been allocated to prototype development, e.g., the recent
Blue H TLP prototype, the Statoil Norsk-Hydro Hywind
spar, the SWAY spar/TLP hybrid, and the Force Technology
Even though there have been a few visionary papers on the
topic of floating wind turbines, significant research and
development efforts only started at the turn of this century
(Henderson and Patel, 2003). In the US, researchers from the
NREL and MIT started a significant R&D effort (Butterfield
et al., 2005) with the development of coupled hydro-aero
tools (Jonkman and Sclavounos, 2006; Wayman et al, 2006;
Jonkman, 2007), while model tests were performed at
Marintek in Norway on a spar hull (Nielsen et al., 2006),
which was the first version of the Hywind spar concept. The
use of a semi-submersible hull as a floating foundation was
proposed independently by Fulton et al. (2006) and
Zambrano et al. (2006). The latter paper’s proposed design
was a MiniFloat hull, the predecessor of the presented
WindFloat design.
Currently, there are a number of offshore wind turbine
floating foundation concepts in various stages of
development. They fall into three main categories: spars,
tension leg platforms (TLPs), and semi-submersible/hybrid
systems. Semi-submersible concepts with a shallow draft
and good stability in operational and transit conditions are
significantly cheaper to tow out, install, and commission
than both spars and TLPs. This is due to their draft, and their
low stability before tendon connection.

Received date: 2011-03-02. In this work, a new semi-submersible FOWT system is

Foundation item: Supported by the 111 Project under Grant No.B07019,
and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant
No.50979020.
*Corresponding author Email: zhaojing0127@hrbeu.edu.cn
© Harbin Engineering University and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012
chosen for study. The validated code SESAM developed by
DNV, which is widely used in offshore industry, is employed
to analyze and evaluate the concept under nine conditions.
Journal of Marine Science and Application (2012) 11: 328-334 329

2 The semi-submersible FOWT model 3 Numerical method

2.1 Wind turbine model
The NREL offshore 5-MW baseline wind turbine was
developed to support concept studies aiming at assessing
offshore wind technology (Jonkman, 2009). The main
characteristics are listed in Table 1.
3.1 Aerodynamic model
In the initial phase of feasibility study, it is assumed that the
wind induced thrust at the top of the tower could be
estimated based on thrust coefficient applied to the overall
area swept by the rotor.

Table 1 Properties of NREL offshore 5-MW wind turbine
Item
Rating power/MW
Blades
Rotor diameter/m
Cut-in wind speed/(m·s−1)
Rated wind speed/(m·s−1)
Cut-out wind speed/(m·s−1)
2.2 Platform model
Fig. 1 displays a new semi-submersible FOWT structure
which is discussed in this paper.
As a simplified wind turbine model is used in the present
Value simulations, the thrust force is obtained based on thrust force
5 coefficient CT (ur). The thrust force FT on the turbine is
3 based on reference (Knauer, 2006), and is given as
126 1
3 FT = ρ a Aur2CT (ur ) (1)
2
11.4
25 where ρ a
is the density of air, A the total area swept by the
rotor, and ur the relative velocity between the incoming
wind and wind turbine. Actually, the thrust coefficient varies
with control strategy and relative wind speed, but it is used
as a constant based on the 5 MW baseline wind turbine
loading vs. speed (Fig. 2) and the result by Nielsen et al.
(2006). The selected thrust coefficient is 0.78 for the
operational state.

Fig. 1 New semi-submersible FOWT concept

The floating structure consists of three side-base floaters,

one wind turbine base floater, girders which connect these
base floaters, and mooring cables. As a mooring system, the
chain mooring system with three directions is employed. Fig. 2 Aerodynamic load on wind turbine rotor
Each mooring line consists of three chains. The water depth
where it is installed is taken to be 150 m. The main Under the operating state, the swept area of the wind turbine is
parameters of the platform and mooring system are tremendous (a disk with a diameter of 126 m), while the
summarized in Table 2 and Table 3. projected area of the tower is smaller (90 m×6 m). The result
Table 2 Properties of platform m is that the aerodynamic load on the rotor (780 kN) is much
larger than the wind load on the tower (approximately 30 kN).
Item Value Consequently, the wind load on the tower is neglected for
Span 90 solving the motion equation of the FOWT system in the
Floater base diameter 8 operating state.
Tower foundation diameter 6
Brace diameter 2 Under the limited state, the wind turbine is parked, the area
Tower height above SWL 73 on the rotor rapidly decreases, and the wind load on rotor
Operating draft 20 and wind load on tower are almost equivalent. Thus the wind
Airgap 10 load on the tower is not neglected.

Table 3 Properties of mooring system The presented research is focused only on the operating state,
Line so the wind load on the tower is not considered.
Material Length/m Diameter/mm Break load/kN
segment
l Chain 160 76 6 001 3.2 Hydrodynamic model
2 Rope 80 76 5 647 The hydrodynamic coefficients (added mass, damping, wave
Note: First segment is connected to the anchor. forces, and drift forces) of the floater are first obtained by a
330 Jing Zhao, et al. Motion Performance and Mooring System of a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine
panel-based diffraction and the Morison theory code Wadam
in the SESAM system, and they are then used in the motion
equation of the system (Fig. 3).
Fig. 3 Hydrodynamic model in Wadam
The equation of motion is established for harmonic motion
of rigid body systems which are expressed in the global
coordinate system. By applying Newton’s law, including the
added mass, damping, and exciting force contributions
acting on the panel and Morison parts of a hydro model, the
complex 6×1 motion vector X (ω , β ) can be found from
the equation of motion.
 (
p v e
)
−ω2 ( M + A(ω) ) + iω B(ω) + B + C + C  X (ω, β ) = F (ω, β ) (2)
where M represents the 6×6 body inertia matrix, A (ω ) the
6×6 frequency dependent added mass matrix, B (ω ) p the
6×6 frequency dependent potential damping matrix, Bv the
6×6 linearised viscous damping matrix, C the 6×6
hydrostatic restoring matrix, C e the 6×6 external restoring
matrix, and F (ω , β ) the 6×1 complex exciting force
vector for frequency ω and incident wave heading angle
β.
3.3 Dynamic mooring line tension model
At an equilibrium position, the positioning forces balance
the static force and the moment from the environment. A
vessel may have more than one equilibrium position.
Equilibrium is computed by a numerical procedure that
solves the Eq.(3) with respect to the vessel’s 3-component or
6-component position vector x.
F mo ( x ) + F th ( x ) + F cu ( x ) + F wi ( x ) + F wa ( x ) + F fi ( x ) = 0 (3)
where F mo ( x ) represents the mooring force, F th ( x ) the
thruster force, F cu ( x ) the current force, F wi ( x ) the
wind force, F wa ( x ) the wave-drift force, and F fi ( x ) the
fixed force.
The solution to Eq.(3) is obtained at the equilibrium position.
The equation lists the force types that may be included in the
equilibrium calculation, provided they are defined. Any of
the forces can be omitted, except the mooring force.
Dynamic tension means that the tension in a mooring cable
depends on not only the upper end's position as shown in the
quasi-static model, but also the velocity and acceleration of
the cable's upper end.
In this paper, the dynamic tension is calculated in the
frequency domain using a transfer function model. The input
to this model is the WF motion of the cable's upper end. The
output is the dynamic tension at this end. With a simplified
analytic model (SAM), the line’s dynamic behavior is
modeled in an approximate manner by a single-DOF
2nd-order transfer function. Only upper end motion in the
most important direction is considered. This method is very
fast.
The shape of the cable during motion will depend on drag
and inertia. The basic simplifying assumption of the method
is that the shape of the cable will be close to the quasi-static
shape, which is a function of the position of the top end
only.
Accepting the quasi-static shape as an approximation to the
true shape, the velocity and acceleration at any point along
the cable are given by the motion of the top end. Thus, it is
possible to calculate the extra tension caused by drag and
inertia forces. The effect of material elasticity is easily taken
into account. This gives a single-degree-of-freedom dynamic
equation:
 + c*u + ( kG + k E ) u = k E xt
m*u (4)
where xt is the top end motion taken along the tangent of
the line at its top. The variable u represents the equivalent
motion of the cable as represented by a single variable. For
an inelastic cable, xt and u will be identical. The
constants kG and k E are the geometric and the elastic
stiffness, respectively, and m* and c* are the equivalent
mass and damping coefficient that correspond to the
definition of u .
Having computed u , the dynamic tension is given by:
TD = k E ( xt − u ) (5)
The calculation is carried out in the frequency domain. From
Eq.(4) the transfer function from the tangential upper end
position to cable position becomes
u (ω ) kE
H u (ω ) = = , j = −1 (6)
xt (ω ) −ω 2 m* + jωc* + kG + k E
using Eq.(5), the transfer function from the tangential top
end position to dynamic tension becomes
Journal of Marine Science and Application (2012) 11: 328-334 331

TD (ω ) −ω 2 m* + jωc* + kG current loads in operation of a wind turbine. So the operating

H TD (ω ) = = kE , j = −1 (7) state is taken into account in this work.
xt (ω ) −ω 2 m* + jωc* + kG + k E

The variances of u , its time derivative and TD , and its The platform of the semi-submersible FOWT is an
equilateral triangle, so a 0°–120°range of wave heading only
time derivative are calculated by Eq.(8).
is chosen (Fig. 6). The environmental conditions are
∞ 2
summarized in Table 4 in detail.
σ u2 =  H u (ω ) S x (ω ) dω
0 t

∞ 2
σ u2 =  ω 2 H u (ω ) S x (ω ) dω
0 t

2
(8)
∞
σ T2 =  H T (ω ) S x (ω ) dω
D 0 D t

∞ 2
σ T2 =  ω 2 H T (ω ) S x (ω ) dω
D 0 D t

where S xt (ω ) is the spectrum of the tangential motion of

the upper line end. The standard deviations of the derivatives
will be used in the estimation of maximum dynamic tension.

Mimosa in the SESAM system was used to compute the

mooring system’s dynamics. A Mimosa model of the
semi-submersible platform in this paper is displayed in Fig. 4 Fig. 6 Environmental direction
and Fig. 5.
Table 4 Environmental conditions
Environmental condition Value
Rated wind speed/(m·s−1) 11.4
Significant wave height/m 4
Peak wave period/s 9.5
Wave heading/(°) 0,30,60,90,120

The wind is collinear with the waves and comes from the
negative x axis of the global coordinate. The JONSWAP
spectra are used for generation of random wind and waves.
No current is prescribed in this particular analysis.

5 Results and discussion

Fig. 4 Horizontal view of mooring system in Mimosa
5.1 Analysis results of motion performance
The environmental loads to each wave heading. From the
statistical results are shown in Table 5, it can be seen that the
aerodynamic load induced by wind turbine on the tower top
plays a dominant role.

Table 5 Environmental loads

Mean
Total
Heading Wind wave
Component environmental
/(°) force/kN drift
force/kN
force/kN
x-axis 779.5 19.9 799.4
0
y-axis 0 0 0
Fig. 5 Vertical view of mooring system in Mimosa x-axis 675.0 16.2 691.2
30
y-axis 388.6 9.5 398.0
4 Definition of environmental conditions 60
x-axis 388.6 10.1 398.6
y-axis 675.0 17.4 692.4
An offshore wind turbine (OWT) is different from offshore x-axis 0 0.1 0.1
platforms used for the oil and gas industry. Maximum 90
y-axis 779.5 18.8 798.3
environmental load in the operating state, due to the wind x-axis −389.8 −10.0 −399.7
load on the rotor, is considerable and larger than wave and 120
y-axis 675.0 17.3 692.3
332 Jing Zhao, et al. Motion Performance and Mooring System of a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine

Fig. 7, Fig. 8 and Fig. 9 illustrate the response amplitude acceleration and pitch response are smaller than that
operators (RAOs) in surge, heave, and pitch for each wave (0.51m/s2 and 10 degrees) of the design with category
heading. mooring system (Sclavounos, 2007).

Table 6 Responses of platform motion

Direction/(°)
Responses
0 30 60 90 120
Max 1.31 1.22 1.16 1.22 1.31
Heave/m significant 0.67 0.63 0.60 0.63 0.67
RMS 0.34 0.31 0.30 0.31 0.34
Max 1.52 1.22 1.25 1.40 1.31
Surge/m significant 0.78 0.62 0.64 0.72 0.67
RMS 0.39 0.31 0.32 0.36 0.34
Max 0.71 0.78 0.90 0.50 0.61
Fig. 7 Surge RAO Pitch/(°) significant 0.36 0.40 0.46 0.25 0.31
RMS 0.18 0.20 0.23 0.13 0.16
Nacelle Max 0.78 0.53 0.71 0.58 0.67
acceleration significant 0.38 0.27 0.35 0.30 0.33
(m·s−2) RMS 0.19 0.13 0.18 0.15 0.17

5.2 Analysis results of mooring system

Results of the maximum mooring line tension under
different environmental conditions are displayed in Fig. 10
and summarized in Table 7.

Fig. 8 Heave RAO

Fig. 9 Pitch RAO

(a) Mean and max tensions of each line under 0° wave heading
Short-term statistical results (180 min) could be extracted
from SESAM for estimation of the floating wind turbine;
values of maximum, significant, and RMS value are given.
Table 6 shows the responses to each wave heading.

In the very beginning of floating wind turbine study, no

clear requirement of system components was listed in any
criteria. But according to Sclavounos (2007), the
constraints were given that the pitch response should be
less than 10 degrees, the nacelle root mean square (RMS)
acceleration is a key performance metric for the wind
turbine and efforts should be taken to minimize that value
for all sea states.
(b) Mean and max tensions of each line under 30° wave heading
From the statistic results, it can be seen that the nacelle RMS
Journal of Marine Science and Application (2012) 11: 328-334 333

(c) Mean and max tensions of each line under 60° wave heading (e) Mean and max tensions of each line under 120° wave heading
Fig. 10 Mooring line tensions under each wave heading

According to API-RP-2SK criteria intended for moorings

which are properly maintained and inspected, and have
connecting hardware with breaking strengths equivalent to
the mooring lines, the mooring line max tension limit is 60%
of the minimum breaking strength (MBS), i.e. the equivalent
factor of safety is 1.67 with the dynamic analysis method in
the case that the mooring system is intact.

From the statistical results, it can be seen that the minimum

safety factor is 1.71, satisfying the requirement of the
operating state. So the semi-submersible system has a
satisfactory performance and optimization may be achieved
(d) Mean and max tensions of each line under 90° wave heading
by improving the parameters.

Table 7 Results of mooring dynamics

Ratio between
Max tension Minimum safety
Direction/(°) Maximum tension/kN Max offset/m max offset and
line No. factor
water depth/%
0 2 429.7 6,7 2.32 12.55 8.37
30 2 390.4 7 2.36 10.99 7.33
60 2 184.3 8 2.58 9.64 6.43
90 3 312.2 9 1.71 11.85 7.90
120 2 459.9 1,9 2.44 10.83 7.22

According to API-RP-2SK criteria intended for moorings
which are properly maintained and inspected, and have
connecting hardware with breaking strengths equivalent to
the mooring lines, the mooring line max tension limit is 60%
of the MBS, i.e. the equivalent factor of safety is 1.67 with
the dynamic analysis method in the case that the mooring
system is intact.
equipment. Several offshore drilling platforms were
designed for a vessel offset limit of 5% water depth to
ensure riser operation. However, the wind turbine is
insensitive to vessel offset, so it is not limited by the
requirements of offshore platforms. Research on the FOWT
offset limit will be carried out in the future.

From the statistical results, it can be seen that the minimum
safety factor is 1.71, satisfying the requirement of the
operating state. So the semi-submersible system has a
satisfactory performance and optimization may be achieved
by improving the parameters.
The vessel’s max offset limits should be established
according to clearance requirements and limitation of
6 Conclusions
In this paper, a new semi-submersible FOWT was studied.
The integrated numerical tool was used to analyze
hydrodynamics and mooring dynamics in the frequency
domain. The simulation was carried out based on the rigid
body assumption of the floater. The main characteristics and
essential parameters are the output for estimation of the
concept.
334 Jing Zhao, et al. Motion Performance and Mooring System of a Floating Offshore Wind Turbine

It is seen that a large wind load has severe impact on the
system while the turbine is operating, and the nacelle RMS
acceleration, as well as pitch response, is satisfied with
constraints. The present methodology and tools are effective
for floating wind turbine design and analysis. Due to the
simplified wind turbine model, more accurate analysis could
be made by better modeling of the wind force.
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Jing Zhao was born in 1983. She is a PhD

References candidate for at Harbin Engineering University.
Her current research interests include foundation
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structure design and hydrodynamic load prediction
(2005). Engineering challenges for floating offshore wind
of offshore wind turbines.
turbines. Copenhagen Offshore Wind Conference, Copenhagen,
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semi-submersible platform for a 5MW wind turbine.
AIAA/ASME Wind Energy Symposium, Reno, 1-6.
Henderson AR, Patel MH (2003). On the modeling of a floating Liang Zhang was born in 1959. He is a professor
offshore wind turbine. Wind Energy, 6(1), 53-86. at Harbin Engineering University. He is the director
Jonkman JM, Buhl ML (2007). Loads analysis of a floating of the Institute of Ocean Renewable Energy
Systems and the deputy director of the Deepwater
offshore wind turbine using fully coupled simulation. Wind
Engineering Research Center. His current research
Power 2007 Conference & Exhibition, Los Angeles, 1-32. interests include ship hydrodynamics,
Jonkman JM, Butterfield S, Musial W, Scott G (2009). Definition computational fluid dynamics, and ocean
of a 5-MW reference wind turbine for offshore system renewable energy system research and application.
development. Technical Report NREL/TP-500-38060, National
Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, United States.
Jonkman JM, Sclavounos PD (2006). Development of fully coupled Haitao Wu was born in 1986. He is a candidate for
aero-elastic and hydrodynamic models for offshore wind a doctor’s degree at Harbin Engineering
turbines. AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, Reno, Uninversity. His current research interests include
fluid dynamics and offshore wind energy.
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