Undesired motions in Floating Offshore Wind Turbines (FOWT) lead to reduction of system efficiency, the system’s lifespan, wind and wave energy mitigation and increment of stress on the system and maintenance costs. In this article, a new barge platform structure for a FOWT has been proposed with the objective of reducing these undesired platform motions. The newly proposed barge structure aims to reduce the tower displacements and platform’s oscillations, particularly in rotational movements. This is achieved by installing Oscillating Water Columns (OWC) within the barge to oppose the oscillatory motion of the waves. Response Amplitude Operator (RAO) is used to predict the motions of the system exposed to different wave frequencies. From the RAOs analysis, the system’s performance has been evaluated for representative regular wave periods. Simulations using numerical tools show the positive impact of the added OWCs on the system’s stability. The results prove that the proposed platform presents better performance by decreasing the oscillations for the given range of wave frequencies, compared to the traditional barge platform.

Performance Analysis on the Use of Oscillating Water Column in Barge-Based Floating Offshore Wind Turbines

This article mainly focuses on the utilization of shadowed type-2 fuzzy systems used to achieve the goal of dynamically adapting the parameters of two already known algorithms in the literature: the harmony search and the differential evolution algorithms. It has already been established that type-2 fuzzy logic enhances the performance of metaheuristics by enabling parameter adaptation; however, the utilization of fuzzy logic results in an increased execution time. For this reason, in this article, the shadowed type-2 fuzzy approach is put forward as a way of reducing execution time, while maintaining the good results that the complete type-2 fuzzy model produces. The harmony search and differential evolution algorithms with shadowed type-2 parameter adaptations were applied to the problem of optimally designing fuzzy controllers. The simulations were performed with the controllers working in an ideal situation, and then with a real situation under different noise levels in order to reach a conclusion regarding the performance of each of the algorithms that were applied.

Shadowed Type-2 Fuzzy Systems for Dynamic Parameter Adaptation in Harmony Search and Differential Evolution for Optimal Design of Fuzzy Controllers

This work was supported in part by the Basque Government, through project IT1207-19 and by the MCIU/MINECO through the projects RTI2018-094902-B-C21 and RTI2018-094902-B-C22 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE).

Complementary Airflow Control of Oscillating Water Columns for Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Stabilization

In this article, a new strategy for switching control has been proposed with the aim of reducing oscillations in floating offshore wind turbines. Such oscillations lead to a shortage in the system’s efficiency, lifespan and harvesting capability of wind and wave energies. In order to study the decreasing of undesired oscillations in the system, particularly in pitch and top tower fore-aft movements, a square-shaped platform barge equipped with four symmetric oscillating water columns has been considered. The oscillating water columns’ air flux valves allow to operate the air columns so that to control the barge movements caused by oscillatory motion of the waves. In order to design the control scheme, response amplitude operators have been used to evaluate the performance of the system for a range of wave frequency profiles. These response amplitude operators analysis makes it possible to implement a switching control strategy to adequately regulate the valves opening/closing transition. The obtained results show that the proposed controlled oscillating water column-based barge present a better performance compared to the traditional barge one. In the case study with the period of 10 s, the results indicate the significant oscillation reduction for the controlled oscillating water column-based system compared to the standard barge system by 30.8% in pitch angle and 25% in fore-aft displacement.

Switching Control Strategy for Oscillating Water Columns Based on Response Amplitude Operators for Floating Offshore Wind Turbines Stabilization

This paper presents an ANN-based rotational speed control to avoid the stalling behavior in Oscillating Water Columns composed of a Doubly Fed Induction Generator driven by a Wells turbine. This control strategy uses rotational speed reference provided by an ANN-based Maximum Power Point Tracking. The ANN-based MPPT predicts the optimal rotational speed reference from wave amplitude and period. The neural network has been trained and uses wave surface elevation measurements gathered by an acoustic Doppler current profiler. The implemented ANN-based rotational speed control has been tested with two different wave conditions and results prove the effectiveness of avoiding the stall effect which improved the power generation.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/24/8975/pdf

Rotational Speed Control Using ANN-Based MPPT for OWC Based on Surface Elevation Measurements

This work was supported in part by the Basque Government, through project IT1207-19 and by the MCIU/MINECO through RTI2018-094902-B-C21 / RTI2018-094902-B-C22 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE).

/pdf/self-adaptive-global-best-harmony-search-algorithm-based-1ktm4sxo5n.pdf

Self-Adaptive Global-Best Harmony Search Algorithm-Based Airflow Control of a Wells-Turbine-Based Oscillating-Water Column

The authors are grateful to the institute Carlos III for grant COV20/01213, to the Spanish Government for Grants RTI2018-094336-B-I00 and RTI2018-094902-BC22 (MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE) and to the Basque Government for Grant IT1207-19.

Manuel De la Sen Parte

Papers

Self-Adaptive Global-Best Harmony Search Algorithm-Based Airflow Control of a Wells-Turbine-Based Oscillating-Water Column

Complementary Airflow Control of Oscillating Water Columns for Floating Offshore Wind Turbine Stabilization

A Study on COVID-19 Incidence in Europe through Two SEIR Epidemic Models Which Consider Mixed Contagions from Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Individuals