Articles | Volume 11, issue 3
https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-11-795-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-11-795-2026
Research article
 | 
10 Mar 2026
Research article |  | 10 Mar 2026

How accurately do engineering methods capture floating wind turbine performance and wake? A critical perspective using multi-fidelity simulations

Stefano Cioni, Francesco Papi, Pier Francesco Melani, Alessandro Fontanella, Agnese Firpo, Andrea Giuseppe Sanvito, Giacomo Persico, Vincenzo Dossena, Sara Muggiasca, Marco Belloli, and Alessandro Bianchini

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Cited articles

Angelou, N., Mann, J., and Dubreuil-Boisclair, C.: Revealing inflow and wake conditions of a 6 MW floating turbine, Wind Energ. Sci., 8, 1511–1531, https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-8-1511-2023, 2023. 
Arabgolarcheh, A., Jannesarahmadi, S., and Benini, E.: Modeling of near wake characteristics in floating offshore wind turbines using an actuator line method, Renewable Energy, 185, 871–887, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2021.12.099, 2022. 
Cabezon, D., Migoya, E., and Crespo, A.: Comparison of turbulence models for the computational fluid dynamics simulation of wind turbine wakes in the atmospheric boundary layer, Wind Energy, 14, 909–921, 2011. 
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A multi-fidelity approach is leveraged to investigate the capabilities of engineering models to capture the wake dynamics of a wind turbine model under imposed motion. In contrast to previous studies, many more different operating conditions have been investigated, including surge, pitch, yaw, and wind–wave misalignment cases; moreover, numerical methods are here consistently applied to the same test cases, which are part of the first experimental round of the NETTUNO project.
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