T-Omega Wind’s Andy Myers to Present on "Preliminary Simulation and Testing of a Novel Shallow-draft, Wind-Yawing Floating Wind Turbine"

Join Andy Myers, PhD, PE and Co-Founder of T-Omega Wind for the Wind Energy Seminar Series: "Preliminary Simulation and Testing of a Novel Shallow-draft, Wind-Yawing Floating Wind Turbine". This University of Massachusetts Amherst event is part of their Wind Energy Seminar Series.

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Floating wind energy technology is immature but is developing quickly with the promise to provide a significant portion of global energy needs. To realize this potential, floating turbines need to lower their costs and increase their manufacturability. Prof. Myers and his colleague Jim Papadopoulos have redesigned the wind turbine to optimize it for ocean use. The system is expressly designed for low-cost, high-volume manufacturing, and broad deployment, with reduced requirements for fabrication capability, supply chain complexity, special vessels, and port infrastructure. Unlike conventional designs, the system allows two kinds of motion in the water: (1) weather-vaning to align with the wind and permit a more efficient tower and (2) significant wave-induced pitch and heave, so a lighter, shallower-draft platform can be employed. The resulting system yaws about a single-point mooring, directs the sloped mooring force to the hub to eliminate pitch from wind thrust, uses an assemblage of two upwind and two downwind legs to support a nacelle and rotor from both sides and mate to widely spaced floats (providing large resistance to overturning), and can be launched, towed, and installed in shallow or deep water. Preliminary results on the motions of this system under regular and irregular wave loading will be presented based on simulations and wave tank testing of a 1:60-scale prototype.