Articles | Volume 8, issue 12
https://doi.org/10.5194/wes-8-1839-2023
© Author(s) 2023. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Quantifying the effect of low-frequency fatigue dynamics on offshore wind turbine foundations: a comparative study
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- Final revised paper (published on 06 Dec 2023)
- Preprint (discussion started on 21 Jul 2023)
Interactive discussion
Status: closed
Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor
| : Report abuse
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RC1: 'Comment on wes-2023-77', Anonymous Referee #1, 13 Aug 2023
- AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Negin Sadeghi, 18 Aug 2023
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RC2: 'Comment on wes-2023-77', Anonymous Referee #2, 28 Aug 2023
- AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Negin Sadeghi, 22 Sep 2023
Peer review completion
AR – Author's response | RR – Referee report | ED – Editor decision | EF – Editorial file upload
AR by Negin Sadeghi on behalf of the Authors (22 Sep 2023)
Author's response
Author's tracked changes
Manuscript
ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (02 Oct 2023) by Nikolay Dimitrov
RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (06 Oct 2023)
ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (15 Oct 2023) by Nikolay Dimitrov
AR by Negin Sadeghi on behalf of the Authors (23 Oct 2023)
Author's response
Author's tracked changes
Manuscript
ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (25 Oct 2023) by Nikolay Dimitrov
ED: Publish as is (26 Oct 2023) by Athanasios Kolios (Chief editor)
AR by Negin Sadeghi on behalf of the Authors (27 Oct 2023)
Manuscript
The authors present a very relevant and interesting analysis into quantifying the impact of low frequency cycles on fatigue damage.
While the subject is clearly presented, the results are not convincing. The following aspects are to be clarified or added before the article can be published.
1) The low cycle region of the SN curve for welded steel is conventionally taken with the slope m = 3 as given in Eurocode 3, DNV GL C 203 and IIW standards. The knee point is usually 2e06 or higher cycles. Therefore the impact of LFFD would be limited to m =3 or low slope portion of the bi-linear SN curve only and have a smaller contribution relative to the high slope segment of the SN curve. Reference Larsen, G C. Thomsen, K that you quote also states the impact with the small slope only has a 1% increase due to LFFD. In this light Figure 3 needs to be better explained as to how much impact to the Miner sum is obtained when including LFFD.
2) Figure 4: Can you show that the 0 load response of the strain sensors have no frequency components (that is noise)?
3) If the stress cycle has a period of several hours or days, then the mean wind speed would have signficant changes during that period and the conventional method of fatigue damage accumulation cannot be applied. How is fatigue damage accumulation to be made over different mean wind speeds considering LFFD? Does it require a non-stationary statistics process to compute this?
4) Usually for offshore structures, it is the welded joints that have the lowest fatigue life. It appears these are not consdiered at all in the present work and therefore is is unclear if LFFD has any impact on design life. The stress at the welded joint is significantly increased due to local stress gradients in different directions. The impact of the stress gradients can be much higher than the increase in loading due to LFFD. Can an analysis be shown as to how much reduction in lifetime is present at a welded joint due to LFFD ?
5) In figure 5, is the m = 5 slope also at cycles less than 2e06, that is, the minimum slope m = 5? If this is the case, the using Haibach rule, the higher slope of the SN curve would be 9 and would result in higher partial safety factors. Can you quantity what is the impact of the LFFD in the usage of partial safety factors (PSF) in the fatigue life assessment? Does the inclusion of uncertainty due to LFFD result in a significant increase in the PSFs? This assessment is needed to understand its impact in the design process.
6) Figure 6 is unclear. How is this damage presented to be considered over the lifetime of the structure as the mean wind speed is not a constant over a day or a week and therefore it is unclear how the lifetime of the structure can be evaluated without actually measuring the damage until failure.
Clarifications to the above are required before the article can be accepted.