Session: 09-04-02 Wind Energy: Turbine blades

Submission Number: 156062

Effects of Ice, Wind, Waves and Currents on Offshore Wind Turbines Destined for Atlantic Canada 

The Canadian provinces of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia are conducting assessment studies for offshore wind to generate electricity. In general, offshore wind turbines are designed largely using numerical methods. In this paper, numerical simulations for the performance of 15 MW monopile wind turbines subjected to ice, wind, waves, and current loads are presented. The wind turbines are located in eastern Canada off the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia. A total of 17 offshore sites were identified as potential placement sites of wind turbines, covering the variance in environmental conditions across the region. In this paper, two sites for possible placement of wind turbines were selected for the simulations. One site is located off the west coast of Newfoundland Island and one site is located off the northern coast of Nova Scotia. The first site has a water depth of about 45 m, and therefore, a monopile was considered. The area is characterized by medium to heavy ice (up to 1.6 m ice thickness) and has an annual mean wind speed of about 10.3 m/s. The second site, located off the northern coast of Nova Scotia, has a water depth of 60 m, and again a monopile wind turbine is considered. The area is characterized by thick ice and an annual mean wind speed of 11.0 m/s.

OpenFAST is an opensource software (available to the public on github.com/OpenFAST) was used to conduct the simulations. The objective is to determine the effects of ice and wind (during the ice season) as well as the effects of waves and wind (during non-ice season) on the turbine tower and its substructure, nacelle acceleration, and power generation. For each of the two sites considered here, the external parameters (thickness of ice, wind speed, waves heights, and currents) were varied, and the resulting trends were compared to the existing data in the open literature. This is direct evaluation of the performance of OpenFAST in simulating wind turbines in ice infested waters. A discussion of the obtained results is provided and the results from the two sites were compared to each other. Conclusions and recommendations are provided.

Presenting Author: Ahmed Derradji-Aouat National Research Council of Canada

Presenting Author Biography: Dr. Ahmed Derradji-Aouat, 25 years with NRC/OCRE (National Research Council of Canada, Ocean, Coastal and River engineering Research Center in Newfoundland, Canada). Prior to NRC, Ahmed worked on CANDU9 Nuclear reactor development with the Atomic Energy of Canada in Ontario (5 years), and worked for a large oil and gas company eni S.p.A in Italy (3 years in exploration drilling). Ahmed is an expert in many technical disciplines, with over 100+ technical publications. Over the years, Ahmed worked and managed many technology development projects, including performance evaluation of new technologies and products, and worked in multi-disciplinary setting (Multiphysics projects) national and international with both industry and academia.