The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has allocated USD 771,000 for the development of simulation software for floating offshore wind turbines.
The grant has been allocated to the University of Central Florida professor Tuhin Das, who will develop software that will model floating wind turbines and simulate effects such as waves crashing against the platform and the motion of the platform as it floats.
According to UCF, Das will conduct the research in the Hybrid Sustainable Energy Systems Lab at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering.
The model will be subjected to standard test cases provided by other teams from DOE’s ATLANTIS project that will collaborate with Das.
“Instead of retrofitting traditional land-based wind turbines with devices that will make them float, we will take a couple of steps back and perhaps start afresh,” Das said. “That way, you won’t use a design that’s very hard to control when floating.”
Researchers at the University of Maine will generate experimental data and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) will validate the model against OpenFAST, a similar software for onshore wind turbines.
Both the laboratory and the University of Maine are funded through the ATLANTIS program under separate projects.