NSF Award
2401005
This Research Advanced by Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering (RAISE) award is made in response to Dear Colleague Letter 23-109, as part of the NSF-wide Clean Energy Technology initiative. This award will focus on optimized, efficient, resilient, and economically competitive floating offshore wind turbines. The offshore wind energy resources in the U.S. are broadly distributed and within reasonable distances from major urban centers. The majority of offshore wind energy farms have been developed in shallow and intermediate water depths (<60 m), in which offshore wind turbines are supported by fixed-bottom substructures. However, almost 70% of the U.S. offshore wind energy resource is in deep water (>60m), where floating offshore wind turbines are needed. Developing economically competitive floating offshore wind energy production faces numerous barriers, including limited innovation of substructures (platform, moorings, and anchors) and poor understanding of critical interactions among subsystems of the floating offshore wind turbine system, as well as insufficient data from high quality, applicable experiments. This multi-disciplinary project will address these barriers by facilitating a deeper understanding of coupled experimental and numerical simulation methods leading to enhanced performance, efficiency, and reliable simulation of next generation floating offshore wind turbines. This research will be complemented by an educational plan to assist in addressing the expected demand for a well-educated workforce in the offshore wind energy industry by organizing workshops, recruiting diverse graduate and undergraduate students to broaden their participation in the future workforce, and engaging talented middle and high school students.<br/><br/>The specific goal of this project is to improve the efficiency and resilience of floating offshore wind turbines under extreme loading conditions. This goal will be achieved by: (1) creating new understanding of and novel concepts for reducing floating offshore wind turbine platform motions, using innovations such as tuned-mass dampers and bio-inspired oscillating hydrofoil hydrokinetic turbines for the dual function of motion control and energy co-production; (2) evaluating the effects of platform motion reductions on mooring line fatigue response; (3) investigating bio-inspired foundations to improve the response of floating offshore wind turbines under realistic loading conditions; and (4) developing coupled aero-hydro-geotechnical-mechanical real-time hybrid simulations of complete floating offshore wind turbine-platform-mooring-foundation systems to accurately represent field conditions in the laboratory and to simulate floating offshore wind turbines under extreme loading conditions. Achieving these goals will enable the project to advance the knowledge required to address the technical challenges facing cost-effective floating offshore wind energy production. The overarching focus will be on improving the understanding of energy efficiency and resilience of floating offshore wind turbines under extreme loading conditions.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
