The BMT Turbine Installation Barge is a purpose designed vessel for the installation of Gravity Base Foundations for offshore wind turbines. The foundations are designed for use in up to 50 metres water depth and the installation system must be operable in high sea states to be feasible.
Longitude were instructed undertake analyses and simulations of the proposed installation method, from loadout to set-down of the GBF on the seabed. Longitude prepared hydrodynamic models of the barge and the GBF and connected them together with links with appropriate stiffness, damping and degrees of freedom. The hydraulic damping between the seabed and GBF that commonly results in skating was also simulated. The installation was then discretised into a number of steps and time domain analyses were run to investigate the dynamic stability of the system and calculate the maximum forces and motions.
The results identified areas where the system could be improved to allow operability in much higher sea states. The models were updated to reflect these design modifications and re-run in higher sea states in order to determine the maximum likely conditions. The final results showed set-down being achievable in wind driven sea states of up to 4 metres Hs.
