This paper presents an upscaling methodology for floating offshore wind turbine platforms using two case studies. The offshore wind turbine industry is trending towards fewer, larger offshore wind turbines within a farm, which is motivated by the per unit cost of a wind farm (including installation, interconnection, and maintenance costs). The results show the platform steel mass to be favorable with upscaling.

A sensitivity analysis determined the modeling parameters for an operating floating offshore wind turbine with the biggest impact on the ultimate and fatigue loads. The loads were the most sensitive to the standard deviation of the wind speed. Ultimate and fatigue mooring loads were highly sensitive to the current speed; only the fatigue mooring loads were sensitive to wave parameters. The largest platform rotation was the most sensitive to the platform horizontal center of gravity.

In this paper, a novel hydrodynamic module of QBlade is validated and verified on three floating offshore wind turbine concepts using two experimental campaigns and two state-of-the-art simulation tools. With three very distinct substructure designs, various modeling approaches could be verified. Based on this study, the hydrodynamic capability of QBlade is matching the current state-of-the-art. This allows its advanced aero-elastic capability to be used in offshore conditions.

This paper provides a comparison for a floating offshore wind turbine between the motion and loading estimated by numerical models and measurements. The floating support structure is a novel design that includes a counterweight to provide floating stability to the system. The comparison between numerical models and the measurements includes system motion, tower loads, mooring line loads, and loading within the floating support structure.

Mobile offshore wind energy systems are a potential way of producing green fuels from the untapped wind resource that lies far offshore. Herein, computational models of two such systems were developed and verified. The models are able to predict the power output of each system based on wind condition inputs. Results show that both systems have merits and that, contrary to existing results, unmoored floating wind turbines may produce as much power as fixed ones, given the right conditions.