Discrete Events Simulation of a Manufacturing Line for Floating Wind Turbines

This paper presents the simulation model developed for designing and optimizing a mass manufacturing plant of floating offshore wind units. The floating wind technology used for the analysis is CROWN FW, a competitive solution made of concrete and steel deck. To respond to the huge demand of the industry, mass production is necessary and the optimization of the construction sites and the logistic procedures highly valuable. The manufacturing line involves three workstations that produce floaters, two turbine assembly workstations and in land workstations for preassemblies. The simulation model has been implemented in Flexsim. The model has been parameterized to allow testing different procurement scenarios, task durations and planning of a 50 units program. It includes the effect of meteorological conditions like the windspeed or the tides height which can cause interruptions of some workstations. The results obtained in a first optimization run are discussed.