Energy from offshore wind: Stability of offshore mono-piles in shallow water
- Dr. Dong Jeng
- Professor Brian Seymour (University of British Columbia, Canada)
- Professor Andrew Chan (University of Birmingham, UK)
- Professor Bin Teng (Dalian University of Technology, China)
- A/Professor Fuping Gao (Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Science, China)
- A/Professor Frank Lu (Jiangsu University, China)
Wind energy has attracted considerable attention from governments, industry and academics worldwide since the oil crisis of the 1970’s. It has considerable potential as a source of relatively clean and mostly local energy. With the recent concerns over the use of fossil fuels contributing to global warming, the implementation of renewable energy supplies has been growing strongly; e.g., the annual growth for wind energy has been around 30% (WEO, 2006), albeit from a very low base. In the last decade, on-shore wind energy technology has been intensively studied resulting in a considerable reduction in costs, and is now competitive with fossil and nuclear fuels for electric power generation in many areas worldwide. However, due to the limitations of land-use for onshore wind farms, offshore wind energy (OWE) promises to become an important source of energy in the near future: it is expected that by the end of this decade, wind parks with a total capacity of thousands of megawatts will be installed in European seas.
Since the first wind turbine was installed in Sweden in 1990, OWE has grown to the extent that there are currently 21 operating OWE projects, 4 projects under construction and 15 planned projects in Europe. Most existing offshore wind farms are mono-piles installed in shallow water. It has been reported that Western Australia has great potential for offshore wind energy with mono-piles. Development of sustainable (renewable) energy has been recognised as an alternative and favour- option to fossil fuels in Australia. It is expected that offshore wind energy will be an important renewable energy in Australia in the next decade. Thus, it is important to develop OWE technology for Australia now. This project directly addresses National Research Priority 1: An Environmentally Sustainable Australia.
The innovation of this project lies in development of integrated models for OWE. All models available are limited to either fluid-soil or fluid-structure or soil-structure interaction. Our Aims are to achieve a deep understanding of OWE, and to use this as a foundation for developing general models for the design of offshore mono-piles. Specifically, we will
(1) develop individual models of each phase, including wind, hydrodynamic, coastal, geotechnical, structure.
(2) integrate individual models into one design model for OWE,
(3) conduct experiments in wave tanks and wind tunnels for the verification of models.
Our models will provide engineers with a better understanding of the combined effects of the wind and wave loadings, soil movement and structural stability of mono-piles, and establish an effective tool for the design of offshore wind farms.
This project is supported by University of Sydney Sustainable Energy Grant (2007-2009) and Australian Research Council Linkage-International Award (2008-2010).