• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.423-430
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• 2016

In this study, we investigated the corrosion damage characteristics of steel for offshore wind turbine tower substructure using an accelerated electrochemical test. The galvanostatic corrosion test method was employed with a conventional 3 electrode cell in natural sea water, and the steel specimen was served as a working electrode to induce corrosion in an accelerated manner. Surface and cross-sectional image of the damaged area were obtained by optical microscope and scanning electron microscope. The weight of the specimens was measured to determine the gravimetric change before and after corrosion test. The result revealed that the steel tended to suffer uniform corrosion rather than localized corrosion due to active dissolution reaction under the constant current regime. With increasing galvanostatic current density, the damage depth and surface roughness of surface was increased, showing approximately 25 times difference in damage depth between the lowest current density ($1mA/cm^2$) and the highest current density ($200mA/cm^2$). The gravimetric observation showed that the weight loss was proportionally increased with increment of current density that has 75 times different according by experimental conditions. Consequently, uniform corrosion of the steel specimen was conveniently induced by the electrochemically accelerated corrosion technique, and it was possible to control the extent of the corrosion damage by varying the current density.

• Ocean Systems Engineering
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.285-296
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• 2011

Spar platforms have several advantages for deploying wind turbines in offshore for depth beyond 120 m. The merit of spar platform is large range of topside payloads, favourable motions compared to other floating structures and minimum hull/deck interface. The main objective of this paper is to present the response analysis of the slack moored spar platform supporting 5MW wind turbine with bottom keel plates in regular and random waves, studied experimentally and numerically. A 1:100 scale model of the spar with sparD, sparCD and sparSD configuration was studied in the wave basin ($30{\times}30{\times}3m$) in Ocean engineering department in IIT Madras. In present study the effect of wind loading, blade dynamics and control, and tower elasticity are not considered. This paper presents the details of the studies carried out on a 16 m diameter and 100 m long spar buoy supporting a 90 m tall 5 MW wind turbine with 3600 kN weight of Nacelle and Rotor and 3500 kN weight of tower. The weight of the ballast and the draft of the spar are adjusted in such a way to keep the centre of gravity below the centre of buoyancy. The mooring lines are divided into four groups, each of which has four lines. The studies were carried out in regular and random waves. The operational significant wave height of 2.5 m and 10 s wave period and survival significant wave height of 6 m and 18 s wave period in 300 m water depth are considered. The wind speed corresponding to the operational wave height is about 22 knots and this wind speed is considered to be operating wind speed for turbines. The heave and surge accelerations at the top of spar platform were measured and are used for calculating the response. The geometric modeling of spar was carried out using Multisurf and this was directly exported to WAMIT for subsequent hydrodynamic and mooring system analysis. The numerical results were compared with experimental results and the comparison was found to be good. Parametric study was carried out to find out the effect of shape, size and spacing of keel plate and from the results obtained from present work ,it is recommended to use circular keel plate instead of square plate.

• KEPCO Journal on Electric Power and Energy
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.31-36
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• 2022

This paper presents the measuring process of dynamic properties of offshore wind power foundation and provides consideration of each step. This Guideline enables to maintain consistent measuring procedure and therefore increase the reliability of test results. Small scaled suction bucket foundation was fabricated to represent the commercial support structure installation mechanism and two cases(free-free, free-fixed) of dynamic tests were performed at workshop. From the tests, the importance of dynamic properties of connection part between suction bucket and tower was figured out. More over, types and configuration of measuring devices are recommended which can help find the natural frequency of wind turbine foundation correctly. In field test, it was found that the natural frequency of suction bucket foundation was increased linearly with the penetration depth due to the confining effect of ambient soil. Meanwhile, it was not easy to get an enough excitation force with normal impact hammer because the N.F of suction bucket model was in the lower range of 0 Hz ~ 5 Hz. Therefore, new excitation method which has enough force and can excite lower frequency range was devised. This study will help develop safety check procedure of suction bucket foundation in field at each installation stage using the N.F measurement.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.1516-1523
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• 2015

This study investigates the stress concentration factor of a door opening of an offshore tubular steel tower. The tubular steel tower is subjected to eight (8) different load combinations which are deemed to be normal and abnormal operating cases for the ultimate limit state and serviceability limit state. Analytical method using parametric equations and numerical method of finite element are used to analyze the stress components as well as any translations or rotations where the flow of stress is interfered with. A finite element program, ABAQUS, is used for the numerical method analysis. Trends of the stress concentration in the localized area near the opening are studied, and points of interest are defined for comparison among three different cases of tubular steel tower: without door and without reinforcement; without door opening and with reinforcement; and with door opening and with reinforcement. Findings are tabulated and shown in illustrative charts, and conclusions are made.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.231-253
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• 2013

The impact of spar-nacelle-blade coupling on edgewise dynamic responses of spar-type floating wind turbines (S-FOWT) is investigated in this paper. Currently, this coupling is not considered explicitly by researchers. First of all, a coupled model of edgewise vibration of the S-FOWT considering the aerodynamic properties of the blade, variable mass and stiffness per unit length, gravity, the interactions among the blades, nacelle, spar and mooring system, the hydrodynamic effects, the restoring moment and the buoyancy force is proposed. The aerodynamic loads are combined of a steady wind (including the wind shear) and turbulence. Each blade is modeled as a cantilever beam vibrating in its fundamental mode. The mooring cables are modeled using an extended quasi-static method. The hydrodynamic effects calculated by using Morison's equation and strip theory consist of added mass, fluid inertia and viscous drag forces. The random sea state is simulated by superimposing a number of linear regular waves. The model shows that the vibration of the blades, nacelle, tower, and spar are coupled in all degrees of freedom and in all inertial, dissipative and elastic components. An uncoupled model of the S-FOWT is then formulated in which the blades and the nacelle are not coupled with the spar vibration. A 5MW S-FOWT is analyzed by using the two proposed models. In the no-wave sea, the coupling is found to contribute to spar responses only. When the wave loading is considered, the coupling is significant for the responses of both the nacelle and the spar.

• Journal of Korean Society of Coastal and Ocean Engineers
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.123-127
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• 2013

In this study, the buckling behaviors during the installation of a bucket foundation for an offshore wind turbine tower were investigated. The objective structure was modeled by using a commercial structural analysis program, and the buckling behavior of the model was estimated as Batdorf's parameter Z in the design code. The surrounding soil conditions and loading condition were applied to the verified analysis model. The effects of parameters such as the longitudinal stiffeners and driven depth were estimated for the buckling capacity. As a result, it was found that the longitudinal stiffeners could drastically increase the buckling capacity in a specific region. In addition, the buckling capacities increased linearly when considering the effect of the surrounding soil.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.35 no.4
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• pp.261-271
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• 2016

In the prediction of response of a pile in soil, numerical approaches such as a finite element method are generally applied due to complicate nonlinear behaviors of soils. However, the numerical methods based on the finite elements require heavy efforts in pile and soil modelling and also take long computing time. So their usage is limited especially in the early design stage in which principal dimensions and properties are not specified and tend to vary. On the contrary, theoretical approaches adopting linear approximations for soils are relatively simple and easy to model and take short computing time. Therefore, if they are validated to be reliable, they would be applicable in predicting responses of a pile in soil, particularly in early design stage. In case of wind turbines regarded in this study, it is required to assess their natural frequencies in early stages, and in this simulation the supporting pile inserted in soil could be replaced with a simplified elastic boundary condition at the bottom end of the wind turbine tower. To do this, analysis for a pile in soil is performed in this study to extract the spring constants at the top end of the pile. The pile in soil can be modelled as a beam on elastic spring by assuming that the soils deform within an elastic range. In this study, it is attempted to predict pile deformations and influence factors for lateral loads by means of the beam-on-spring model. As two example supporting structures for wind turbines, mono pile and suction pile models with different diameters are examined by evaluating their influence factors and validated by comparing them with those reported in literature. In addition, the deflection profiles along the depth and spring constants at the top end of the piles are compared to assess their supporting features.