A Monolithic Concrete Platform for Floating Offshore Wind Turbines
A novel concept of a floating platform for supporting wind turbines (named WindCrete) has been developed at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) in order to substantially reduce the capital expenditure or CAPEX for floating offshore wind turbines. The concept is based on a monolithic full concrete structure, including the tower and the floater, which also allows a significant reduction of the operating expense, or OPEX. The basics of the concept are presented in this article, including the advantages of concrete in the marine environment, the main dimensions and the hydrostatic and hydrodynamic properties of WindCrete.
By Climent Molins and Alexis Campos, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
WindCrete consists of a monolithic concrete floating spar buoy and includes both the tower and the floater built in a continuous single piece. This offers a significant cost reduction during the construction and the structure is virtually free of maintenance during its service life (50 or more years). The main hydrostatic and hydrodynamic properties have been checked and validated through experiments in a wave flume, and coupled aero-servo-elastic-hydrodynamic analyses were used to check WindCrete’s structural integrity. Accurate material cost estimations for the platform, including all its internal steel reinforcements, were also performed. A cost comparison with a steel equivalent platform design highlights a material cost reduction larger than 60% in the case of the full concrete design. For the preliminary design, the NREL 5MW was used as the reference wind turbine (see Figure 1).
