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This paper summarises the work conducted within the 1st FOWT (Floating Offshore Wind Turbine) Comparative Study organised by the EPSRC (UK) ‘Extreme loading on FOWTs under complex environmental conditions’ and ‘Collaborative computational project on wave structure interaction (CCP-WSI)’ projects. The hydrodynamic response of a FOWT support structure is simulated with a range of numerical models based on potential theory, Morison equation, Navier-Stokes solvers and hybrid methods coupling different flow solvers. A series of load cases including the static equilibrium tests, free decay tests, operational and extreme focused wave cases are considered for the UMaine VolturnUS-S semi-submersible platform, and the results from 17 contributions are analysed and compared with each other and against the experimental data from a 1:70 scale model test performed in the COAST Laboratory Ocean Basin at the University of Plymouth. It is shown that most numerical models can predict similar results for the heave response, but significant discrepancies exist in the prediction of the surge and pitch responses as well as the mooring line loads. For the extreme focused wave case, while both Navier–Stokes and potential flow base models tend to produce larger errors in terms of the root mean squared error than the operational focused wave case, the Navier-Stokes based models generally perform better. Given the fact that variations in the solutions (sometimes large) also present in the results based the same or similar numerical models, e.g., OpenFOAM, the study highlights uncertainties in setting up a numerical model for complex wave structure interaction simulations such as those involving a FOWT and therefore the importance of proper code validation and verification studies.

Floating offshore wind turbines are ideal for deeper waters, providing access to stronger and more stable winds. The Counter-Rotating Axis Floating Tilting (CRAFT) turbine features a unique design with two counter-rotating turbines on a tilted vertical shaft and two independent electrical machines submerged below sea level. The primary generator, connected to both turbines, includes counter-rotation which doubles the relative torque, while the secondary machine controls the upper turbine. This study examines the impact of primary and secondary machine efficiency on electricity generation. The findings indicate that the primary generator's efficiency is crucial for system stability, whereas the secondary machine's efficiency is less critical. Reducing the secondary machine's efficiency from 97% to 83% resulted in a 0.1% reduction in annual electricity generation. Despite the asynchronous machine's lower efficiency, it is the economically favorable choice as the secondary machine over its synchronous counterpart due to its reduced design complexity and lower magnet costs, leading to lower overall expenses. Future research investigate how turbulent flow effects and airflow interactions between the turbines influences the model. Incorporating the cooling factor, a more comprehensive cost model and a refined dynamic stall model will also further improve the simulation's accuracy and robustness.

Design studies of two counter rotating permanent magnet (PM) synchronous generators have been performed. The two 40 MW generators have been designed and compared for the Counter Rotating Axis Floating Turbine (CRAFT) with different air-gap diameters. The generators are modelled with validated full physics finite element method (FEM) which also includes dynamic simulations. The simulations are performed by using an electromagnetic model. The model is described by combined field and circuit equations and is solved in a finite element environment. The stator winding of the generators consists of circular cables and the rotor consists of buried ferrite PM. The generator with smaller air-gap diameter will have lower material costs due to smaller frame but higher due to use of more active materials. A comparison of the counter rotating generators with a traditional direct drive has also been performed by maintaining the same voltage but reducing the rotational speed by half. This shows that a generator with a higher rotational speed will have lower material costs due to smaller dimensions and lower weight. Furthermore, a design variation, to reduce the cogging and harmonic content of the voltage by changing the pole shoe, was analyzed. In conclusions, a 40 MW generator design for the CRAFT has successfully been simulated with a multi-physics-FEM. The advantages of using a counter-rotating generator has been established.

To investigate the hydrodynamic performance of the floating platform VolturnUS-S as configured for the 1^st Floating Offshore Wind Turbine (FOWT) Comparative Study, we have used a Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) based solver that features a coupling to the cable dynamic solver MoorDyn+ to reproduce the proposed benchmarks. This is a quite novel application of the method to simulate semi-submersible platforms for offshore wind energy. For this benchmark, which does not include aerodynamic actions, we have proposed a new procedure, leveraging offline coupling techniques to model the problem in a sub-domain of the reference wave basin. Our approach is detailed and validated for wave propagation only, and thus applied to reproduce the wave-platform interaction for an extreme focused wave condition. Good results are obtained for the wave generation and validation using open boundary conditions as well as for the platform motion under the extreme event.

The Counter-Rotating Axis Floating Tilted turbine (CRAFT) is a new design for floating off-shore wind power, which utilizes a low center of gravity and allows the tower to tilt to mitigate costs for platforming.

In this study, 3D simulations of the CRAFT have been performed to investigate the effect from the tower's tilt angle on the aerodynamics of the turbine using a vortex filament method. Due to lack of empirical data of the CRAFT, the method has been benchmark tested against a previous project on a vertical axis wind turbine.

Using this method, the blades' twist angle has been set to achieve good lift-to-drag ratio along the entire blade. Furthermore, the blades' chord length has been determined for optimal Tip Speed Ratio (TSR) 6 when the tower is tilted 30 degrees from vertical position.

The CRAFT has been simulated vertically and tilted 15°, 30° and 45°, for TSRs ranging between 4 and 9. The power coefficients (C_P) and normal forces have been determined, and velocity plots are presented to show how the near-wake develops.

The results from this study serves as a basis for further development and design of the CRAFT.

This paper presents the influence of the strut and the tower on the aerodynamic force of the blade for the vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT). It has been known that struts degrade the performance of VAWTs due to the inherent drag losses. In this study, three-dimensional Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes simulations have been conducted to investigate the effect of the strut and the tower on the flow pattern around the rotor region, the blade force distribution, and the rotor performance. A comparison has been made for three different cases where only the blade; both the blade and the strut; and all of the blade, the strut, and the tower are considered. A 12-kW three-bladed H-rotor VAWT has been studied for tip speed ratio of 4.16. This ratio is relatively high for this turbine, so the influence of the strut is expected to be crucial. The numerical model has been validated first for a single pitching blade and full VAWTs. The simulations show distinguished differences in the force distribution along the blade between two cases with and without struts. Since the wake from the struts interacts with the blades, the tangential force is reduced especially in the downwind side when the struts are considered. The calculated power coefficient is decreased by 43 %, which shows the importance of modeling the strut effect properly for accurate prediction of the turbine performance. The simulations also indicate that including the tower does not yield significant difference in the force distribution and the rotor power.

This paper compares three different numerical models to evaluate their accuracy for predicting the performance of an H-rotor vertical-axis wind turbine (VAWT) considering the influence of struts. The strut of VAWTs is one factor that makes the flow feature around the turbine more complex and thus influences the rotor performance. The focus of this study is placed on analyzing how accurately three different numerical approaches are able to reproduce the force distribution and the resulting power, taking the strut effect into account. For the 12 kW straight-bladed VAWT, the blade force is simulated at three tip speed ratios by the full computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model based on the Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations, the actuator line model (ALM), and the vortex model. The results show that all the models do not indicate a significant influence of the struts in the total force over one revolution at low tip speed ratio. However, at middle and high tip speed ratio, the RANS model reproduces the significant decrease of the total tangential force that is caused due to the strut. Additionally, the RANS and vortex models present a clear influence of the struts in the force distribution along the blade at all three tip speed ratios investigated. The prediction by the ALM does not show such distinctive features of the strut impact. The RANS model is superior to the other two models for predicting the power coefficient considering the strut effect, especially at high tip speed ratio.

The Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland (RNO-G) is designed to make the first observations of ultra-high energy neutrinos at energies above 10 PeV, playing a unique role in multi-messenger astrophysics as the world's largest in-ice Askaryan radio detection array. The experiment will be composed of 35 autonomous stations deployed over a 5 x 6 km grid near NSF Summit Station in Greenland. The electronics chain of each station is optimized for sensitivity and low power, incorporating 150 - 600 MHz RF antennas at both the surface and in ice boreholes, low-noise amplifiers, custom RF-over-fiber systems, and an FPGA-based phased array trigger. Each station will consume 25 W of power, allowing for a live time of 70% from a solar power system. The communications system is composed of a high-bandwidth LTE network and an ultra-low power LoRaWAN network. I will also present on the calibration and DAQ systems, as well as status of the first deployment of 10 stations in Summer 2021.

Since summer 2021, the Radio Neutrino Observatory in Greenland (RNO-G) is searching for astrophysical neutrinos at energies > 10 PeV by detecting the radio emission from particle showers in the ice around Summit Station, Greenland. We present an extensive simulation study that shows how RNO-G will be able to measure the energy of such particle cascades, which will in turn be used to estimate the energy of the incoming neutrino that caused them. The location of the neutrino interaction is determined using the differences in arrival times between channels and the electric field of the radio signal is reconstructed using a novel approach based on Information Field Theory. Based on these properties, the shower energy can be estimated. We show that this method can achieve an uncertainty of 13% on the logarithm of the shower energy after modest quality cuts and estimate how this can constrain the energy of the neutrino. The method presented in this paper is applicable to all similar radio neutrino detectors, such as the proposed radio array of IceCube-Gen2.

This study investigates the numerical prediction for the aerodynamic noise of the vertical axis wind turbine using large eddy simulation and the acoustic analogy. Low noise designs are required especially in residential areas, and sound level generated by the wind turbine is therefore important to estimate. In this paper, the incompressible flow field around the 12 kW straight-bladed vertical axis wind turbine with the rotor diameter of 6.5 m is solved, and the sound propagation is calculated based on the Ffowcs Williams and Hawkings acoustic analogy. The sound pressure for the turbine operating at high tip speed ratio is predicted, and it is validated by comparing with measurement. The measured spectra of the sound pressure observed at several azimuth angles show the broadband characteristics, and the prediction is able to reproduce the shape of these spectra. While previous works studying small-scaled vertical axis wind turbines found that the thickness noise is the dominant sound source, the loading noise can be considered to be a main contribution to the total sound for this turbine. The simulation also indicates that the received noise level is higher when the blade moves in the downwind than in the upwind side.