Floating wind has a new tool for certification of wind floater designs, MUST.

MUST has been successfully used in a floating platform design certification process and can be used to simulate the behaviour of any floater in terms of: generation, loads, moments, stability, displacements, or the ability to orient itself to the wind.

In the certification process, the certifying body conducts a thorough assessment of the critical elements of the design. The assessment ensures that engineering best practices have been implemented correctly. The review includes drawings, analyses, and specifications that demonstrate that the design complies with design standards and codes, with a view to subsequent construction.

The evaluation is exhaustive, the design methodologies are evaluated, the analyses carried out to arrive at the design, as well as the analytical methodology used. It is precisely in these last two points, the analyses and the methodology used, where MUST tool has demonstrated its ability to simulate the behaviour of the floating platform to work in accordance with the highest technical requirements in: generation, loads, moments, stability, displacements, or the ability to orient itself to the wind.

The certification is also a recognition of the good work of the technical teams, a combination of talent, endeavour, and motivation. A source of pride for CENER and the entire team that has made it possible.

It is important to remember, as explained in a previous Newsletter, that the simulation software of the wind sector was NOT developed with multi-wind turbine or floating in mind, but in the predominant technology, onshore and offshore wind. CENER’s tool, MUST, is one of the first in a new generation of tools developed specifically to solve as many onshore and offshore cases as possible, with multiple degrees of complexity for both aerodynamic and hydrodynamic effects.

Onshore, fixed offshore and floating offshore simulations must consider different effects, for example, aerodynamic coupling, due to the interaction of a rotor with its own wake or wakes between rotors, the impact of wave-induced movements on aerodynamics or large blade deflections. These and other factors are becoming more and more prevalent in the wind energy sector and have a significant impact on production and mechanical loads, which is why MUST considers them in calculations to provide reliable solutions. And as has been proven, they are reliable calculations with which to obtain a certification.

Finally, CENER continues to research for the rapid and safe development of floating wind and multi-wind turbines. Working together with the industry on new challenges: floater-wind turbine coupling, floating turbine control, multi-wind turbine control, displacement of floaters with a single mooring point (Single Point Mooring), coupling between wakes, pressure distributions in marine structures… And more to come!