• Journal of Wind Energy
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.91-102
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• 2024

Rapid progress is being made in foundational technology research and engineering for the construction of floating offshore wind farms. There is active development of technology for detachable mooring systems, which have strengths in addressing maintenance issues that arise in floating offshore wind farms and enhance their economic viability. Conventional detachable mooring systems use Kenter links inserted into the middle of mooring chains, which require excessive time for retrieval by Anchor Handling Tug Supply (AHTS) vessels during detachment operations. Moreover, these operations pose risks of link damage and accidents. Therefore, there is a demand for the development of a new concept of detachable mooring systems. The proposed detachable mooring system in this study simultaneously integrates a fairlead chain stoppers (FCS) and submersible mooring pulleys (SMP), which enables all operations to be conducted on the AHTS vessel without underwater tasks. This study detailed the design and safety evaluation of the SMP, a core component of the detachable mooring system, based on the minimum breaking load (MBL) of selected mooring lines according to the capacity of the floating platform. It referenced international codes (AISC Specification for Structural Steel Buildings D5, Pin-Connected Members) for design verification and performed finite element analysis to evaluate the strength of major components in installation and operation scenarios. Additionally, procedures and techniques for evaluating the structural strength of components under uncertain boundary conditions were proposed.

• Journal of Wind Energy
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.26-33
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• 2023

In this study, the global response characteristics of floater and mooring for floating offshore wind turbine with a detachable mooring system are performed. Global motion and structural response result extracted from the coupled motion analysis of 10MW DTU floating offshore wind turbine with detachable mooring system modeled by high-order boundary element model and finite element mesh, were used to study the characteristics of tension on mooring lines subjected to three different types of ocean loads. Breaking limit of mooring line characterized by wind, current and wave load has a major effect on the distribution of mooring tension found in time domain analysis. Based on the numerical results of coupled motion analysis, governing equation for calculating the motion response of a floater under ocean loads, and excitation force and surge motion and tension respectively are presented using excursion curve. It is found that the response of floater is reliable and accurate for calculating the tension distributions along the mooring lines under complex loadings. This means that the minimun breaking limit of mooring system satisfied a design criteria at ultimate ocean environmental loading condtions.