Team Members & Role: 

Leo Narbonne: Team Lead

Trent Blatz : Analysis Lead

Isabella Lambros: Design Lead

Jadyn Fletcher: Fabrication Lead

Dina Hertog-Raz: Evaluation Lead

Abstract:

The offshore wind turbine industry is a growing field that faces many challenges related to mooring, installation, and operation. The benefits of offshore wind compared to onshore wind include access to higher and more consistent wind speeds, the ability to build larger turbines with less spatial constraints, and proximity to coastal cities and other coastal load centers. In addition, floating structures can be installed in water depths greater than fixed-bottom structures. Technology in floating wind is always improving, with the hopes of bringing offshore wind power to the mainstream.

The team’s mission was to design and fabricate a moored floating structure capable of supporting and stabilizing a Vevor 400W turbine while withstanding wind, waves, and current loading from an ocean environment. To achieve this, three main factors had to be considered: buoyancy, stability, and station keeping. For the structure, customer off-the-shelf (COTS) buoys were used for buoyancy and a triangular base created out of structural tubing was implemented for stability. The shape and size of the base was carefully considered to balance stability and transportability. For station keeping, the structure was connected to anchors with catenary chain mooring lines. The structure was tested at Puffer’s Pond in Amherst, as well as at Crane Beach in Ipswich, MA.

The primary goal of the project was to enter the prototype in the Floating Wind Competition (FWC), held at beach Plage Napoléon in Port-Saint-Louis-du-Rhône, France. The competition published five criteria for judging the final structure, and our team prioritized stability, modularity, and transportability.