1. COLLOQUIUM
Delft, 7 December 2015
Wind Energy Research Group
Johan Antonissen
SJOEM, the Simple Jacket Optimization Engineering Model
The main drawback of offshore wind energy is its high levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). One explanation
for these high costs arises from the large amount of uncertainties that come with such a large scale and
complex project. Decisions made in the preliminary design phase have a large impact in project outcome.
Since during these early stages of the design very little is known of the site, decisions are often based on
inaccurate data. If these decisions prove to be faulty they could result in very large unforeseen project
costs thereby causing an unnecessary increase in LCOE.
A tool is needed to aid engineers in their decision making process of the preliminary design phase. One
such a tool is TeamPlay; an engineering model that evaluates offshore wind farm design using automated
optimization techniques. In it’s current state TeamPlay evaluates wind farm design for turbines with a
monopile foundation. The goal of this thesis is to create a new stand-alone tool to extend TeamPlay’s
capabilities with a additional support structure type:
Design of a simple and fast jacket optimization tool that aids offshore wind farm engineers with their
decision making process of the preliminary design phase when only limited data is available.
For this tool, an offshore wind support structure design is found using design optimization for the tower,
jacket and foundation piles. This design optimum is found for the most lightweight structure that
withstands each of three design load cases (DLCs). These represent likely to occur extreme weather or
structure loading situations. Since structure costs are directly proportional to the amount of material used,
this optimum is found for the minimum required material rather than minimum costs.
Finally, in a first effort to compare the engineering results with practice, a study is set out to compare
internal member loads found from this model with Finite Element Method (FEM) software results. From this
comparison, a accumulated load error of roughly six percent is found per bay. These results are of good
accuracy for estimation of current and near future jacket design for applicable depth ranges of these
structures.
It is with great pleasure that I invite you to attend this presentation. The presentation will
take place at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering,
Kluyverweg 1, Delft.
Date: 21 December 2015
Start: 14:00 hours
Location: Lecture room C
The chairman,
Prof. dr. G.J.W. van Bussel