Presentations

Abstract

Ambitious capacity goals for future offshore wind farms, both bottom fixed and floating, may jeopardise global efforts to minimise anthropogenic environmental impacts and protect the marine environment and its biodiversity. Environmental impacts of offshore wind installations may include risks of collision, chemical emissions, or underwater noise, to just name a few. Nature inclusive design (NID) solutions can support the alignment of the human needs (clean energy) with nature’s and society’s demands (decreased environmental and social impact), thereby offering solutions for the current techno-socio-enviro-economic challenges. The development of such NIDs requires interdisciplinary research, combing aspects of environmental and social impact analysis, techno-economic analysis, marine operations, structural engineering, as well as aerodynamic and hydrodynamic analysis. For the latter, experimental modelling in state-of-the-art research facilities is key to provide insights into the (non-linear) hydrodynamic effects of NID solutions, thereby supporting structural engineering and design, as well as providing reference data for the development of numerical models, which ultimately complement the experimental hydrodynamic analysis.  In the framework of the INF4INiTY project, which aims at the development of NIDs for future floating offshore wind farms, two novel experimental test facilities are employed in concert to deliver high-resolution, high-accuracy experimental data of NIDs for floating offshore wind across scales. This presentation provides an overview of the novel experimental test facilities, namely the saltwater wave-current flume (SWCF) and the large wave-current flume (GWK+), provides insights into the different model setups used for the development of the NID solutions, as well as initial experimental results from the medium scale test campaign in the SWCF and, finally, future work to reach the project’s goals.