Enhancing Floating Wind Turbine Reliability with Shared Damping Mooring

The reliability of mooring systems has long been a challenge for expanding floating wind turbines into deeper waters. The performance of the mooring system directly determines the service life and survival capability of floating wind turbines. To address this issue, our team has developed a shared damping mooring system. This system reduces the fatigue impact from operating sea conditions and effectively minimizes dragging damage at the fairlead. In this study, two widely used dampers were selected to construct the shared damping mooring system, and their effectiveness in enhancing the reliability of semi-submersible wind turbines was explored. Compared to traditional mooring methods, it was found that this shared damping approach can effectively increase the service life of mooring lines, reduce the local stress and tension levels at the fairlead, and improve the stability of semi-submersible wind turbines. Simulation results indicate that the shared damping mooring system can effectively alleviate fatigue damage, and the shaped memory alloy damper provides significant damping force under low-frequency environmental loads. This characteristic significantly enhances the floating foundation's stability and extends the mooring system's lifetime.