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Support structures of offshore wind turbines are subject to cyclic stresses generated by different time-variant random loadings such as wind, waves, and currents in combinationwith the excitation by the rotor. In the design phase, the cyclic demand on wind turbine support structure is calculated and forecasted with semi or fully probabilistic engineering models. In some cases, additional cyclic stresses may be induced by construction deviations, unbalanced rotor masses and structural dynamic phenomena such as, for example, the Sommerfeld effect. Both, the significant uncertainties in the design and a validation of absence of unforeseen adverse dynamic phenomena necessitate the employment of measurement Systems on the support structures. The quality of the measurements of the cyclic demand on the support structures depends on (a) the precision of the measurement System consisting of sensors, amplifier and data normalization and (b) algorithms for analyzing and converting data to structural health information. This paper presents the probabilistic modelling and analysis of uncertainties in strain measurements performed for the purposes of reconstructing stress resultants in wind turbine towers.
It is shown how the uncertainties in the strain measurements affect the uncertainty in the individual components of the reconstructed forces and moments. The analysis identifies the components of the vector of stress resultants that can be reconstructed with sufficient precision.
Predictive information and maintenance optimization for deteriorating structures is concerned with scheduling (a) the collection of information by inspection and monitoring and (b) maintenance actions such as repair, replacement, and retrofitting based on updated predictions of the future condition of the structural system. In this article, we consider the problem of jointly identifying—at the beginning of the service life—the optimal inspection time and repair strategy for a generic welded joint in a generic offshore wind turbine structure subject to fatigue. The optimization is performed based on different types of decision analyses including value of information analyses to quantify the expected service life cost encompassing inspection, repair, and fatigue damage for all relevant combinations of inspection time, repair method, and repair time. Based on the analysis of the expected service life cost, the optimal inspection time, repair method, and repair time are identified. Possible repair methods for a welded joint in an offshore environment include welding and grinding, for which detailed models are formulated and utilized to update the joint’s fatigue performance. The decision analyses reveal that an inspection should be scheduled approximately at mid-service life of the welded joint. A repair should be performed in the same year after an indication and measurement of a fatigue crack given an optimal inspection scheduling. This article concludes with a discussion on the results obtained from the decision and value of information analyses.
The levelized cost of energy (LCoE) is an important measure to quantify the macro-economic efficiency of an offshore wind farm and to enable a quantitative comparison with other types of energy production. The costs of the structural integrity management - which is required to ensure an adequate lifetime reliability of the turbine support structures - are part of the operational expenditures of an offshore wind farm. An optimization of the structural integrity management may reduce the operational expenditures and consequently the LCoE. However, the effect of the structural integrity management on the LCoE is hardly known. To investigate this effect, this paper presents a sensitivity analysis of the LCoE of a generic offshore wind farm. The probabilistic models of the parameters influencing the LCoE are based on a literature study including an explicit model for the structural integrity management.
The analysis reveals that LCoE may potentially be reduced if an optimization of the structural integrity management enables a service life extension.